^GHTEEN'ffl CENTURY 
' ESSAYS 




D. APPLETON & €-0. 



I JJBRARY^OF CONGRESS, 
I Chap "PR._\.2^5^ 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. ^ 



ENGLISH CLASSICS 



With slower pen men used to write. 
Of old, when " letters" were ^'■polite;" 
In Anna's, or in George's days, 
They could afford to turn a phrase. 
Or trim a straggling theme aright. 

They knew not steam ; electric light 
Not yet had dazed their cabner sight ; — 
They fueted out both blame and praise 
With slower pen. 

More swiftly now the hours take flight I 
What's read at morn is dead at night; 
Scant space have we for A rt's delays. 
Whose breathless thought so briefly stays. 
We may not work — ah ! would we might, 
With slower pen I 




THE TORY FOXHUNTER 



EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 

ESSAYS 

SELECTED AND ANNOTATED 
AUSTIN^^OBSON 

Collecta revirescunt 




NEW YORK 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

I, 3, AND 5 BOND STREET. 
MDCCCLXXXII 



Mrs. Bichmond Thackeray Ritchie, 



T N putting the finishing Strokes to that famous 
Novel of the Eighteenth Century, which is one 
of the chief Glories of the Nineteenth, the Author of 
Esmond did not neglect one needful and indeed in- 
dispensable Detail, the Dedication to an Illustrious 
Personage. So high a Precedent may not improperly 
be followed in Cases more obscure. Were Mr. 
Thackeray still among us, the Homage of this Selec- 
tion of Eighteenth - Century Essays (had he been 
pleased to accept it) would have belonged of right 
to the literary Descendant of Addison and Fielding, 
of Goldsmith and Steele : and it would have been my 
Privilege to have found in it the Pretext for a Tribute 

(however 



vi DEDICATION. 

(however trifling) to a great Writer whom I love and 

honour. But alas ! 

— nullum 
Saeva Caput Proserpinay«^V : 

and Fate, that cannot kill a Noble Work, is absolute 
over him who gives it Birth. I am reminded, not 
the less, that there are still written, for our unthinking 
Moderns, Pages in which it is not difficult to trace 
some softer Relation to that pure and unaffected 
Pathos, that keen yet kindly Satire. I presume there- 
fore to offer this little Volume to Mr. Thackeray's 
Daughter. 

/ am, 

MADAM, 

Your obedient Servant, 

Austin Dobsoii. 



CONTENTS, 



Introduction 



^0. I. Mr. Bickerstaff Visits a Friend . . i 

2. Do. do. {continued) lo 

5. The Trumpet Club . . . - 17 

4. The Political Upholsterer . . , 24 

5. Tom Folio . . . . . 31 

6. Ned Softly the Poet . . ... 37 

7. Recollections of Childhood ... 44 

8. Adventures of a Shilling . . . 51 

9. Frozen Voices . . . . . 59 
10. 5fa^c Lions • .... 67 
H. Meditations in Westminster Abbey , 73 
12. The Exercise of the Fan .,,']() 

No. 



CONTENTS. 



No. 13. fFill JVimhle .... 
„ 14. Sir Roger de Coverley's incestors 
,, 15. Sir Roger de Coverley Hare-Hunting 
,y 16. The Citiien's Journal 
,, 17. The Fine Lady's Journal . 
,, 18. Sir Roger de Coverley at the Play 
,, 19. A Day's Ramble in London 
,, 20. Dick Estcourt : In Mctnoriam . 
,. 21. Death of Sir Roger da Coverley . 
,, 22. The Tory Foxhunter . 
,, 23. A Mode?'n Conversation 
,, 24. Do. do. (continued) 

,, 25. The Squire in Orders 
,, 26. Country Congregations 
,, 27. Dick Minim the Critic 
„ 28. Do. do. (continued) 

,, 29. Art-Connoisseurs . , . 



CONTENTS. 


ix 


No. 30. The Man in Black . . 


PAGE 
214 


J, 31. Beau Ttbhs .... 


220 


„ 32. Beau Tibhs at Home 


226 


„ 33. Beau Tibhs at Vauxhall 


235 


,, 34. A Country Dowager . 


241 


Illustrative Notes . , . . 


251 



INTRODUCTION. 

THE Eighteenth- Century Essayists, even in the 
compact editions of Chalmers and Berguer, 
occupy some forty or fifty volumes. These, again, 
are only a part of those whose names are given in the 
laborious list compiled by Dr. Nathan Drake. To 
compress any representative selection from such a 
mass of literature within the limits of the ' Parch- 
' ment Library ' is clearly out of the question ; and 
it must therefore be distinctly explained that we are 
here concerned only with a particular division of the 
subject. That grave and portentous production — 
the essay ' critical,' ' metaphysical,' * moral,' which 
so impressed our forefathers, has become to us a 
little lengthy — a little wearisome. Much of it is old- 
fashioned ; something is obsolete. With the march 
of time philosophy has taken fresh directions ; a new 
apparatus critictis has displaced the old ; and if we are 
didactic now, we are didactic with a difference. But 

the 



xii INTRODUCTION. 

the sketches of social life and character still retain 
their freshness, because the types are eternal. Lejour 
va passer; inais les ladauds ne passeront pas I As the 
frivolous chatter of the Syracusan ladies in Theocritus 
is still to be heard at every Hyde-Park review, as the 
Crisplnus and SufFenus of Horace and Catullus still 
haunt our clubs and streets, as the personages of 
Chaucer and Moliere and La Bruyere and Shakespeare 
still live and move in our midst, — so the ' Will Wim- 

* bles' and ' Ned Softlys,' the ' Beau Tibbs's ' and the 

* Men in Black,' are as familiar to us now as they 
were to the be-wigged and be-powdered readers of 
the * Spectator ' and the ' Citizen of the World.' We 
laugh at them ; but we sympathise with them too ; 
and find them, on the whole, more enduringly 
diverting than dissertations on the * Non-locality of 

* Happiness ' or the ' Position of the Pineal Gland.' 

In the conviction, therefore, that the majority of 
the graver essays have lost their interest for the 
general public, the present gathering is mainly con- 
fined to sketches of character and manners, and those 
chiefly of the humorous kind. The examples chosen 
•will speak so plainly for themselves that any lengthy 
introduction would only needlessly occupy space ; but 
a few rapid indications with respect to the earlier 

collections 



INTRODUCTION-, xiii 

collections and the succession of the leading writers, 
will not be superfluous. Setting aside for the mo- 
ment the ' Scandal Club ' of Defoe's * Review,' the 
Eighteenth-Century Essay proper may be said to begin 
with the ' Tatler ' by ' Isaac BickerstafF, Esq.' — the 
first number of which is dated ' Tuesday, April 12th, 
' 1709.' In appearance it was a modest-looking sheet 
enough, and not entirely free from the imputations of 
' tobacco-paper ' and ' scurvy letter ' cast upon it by 
an injured correspondent.* Its price was a penny; 
and it was issued three times a week. To the first 
and many subsequent papers was prefixed that well- 
worn ' Quicquid agunt homines ' which has recently 
entered upon a new career of usefulness with Lord 
Beaconsfield's ' Endymion ; ' and its ' general pur- 

* pose,' as discovered in the ' Preface ' to vol. i., was 
' to expose the false arts of life ; to pull off the dis- 
' guises of cunning, vanity, and affectation ; and to 
' recommend a general simplicity in our dress, our 

* discourse, and our behaviour.' Steele's first idea 
seems to have been to combine the latest news (for 
which his position as 'Gazetteer' gave him excep- 
tional facilities) with familiar sketches and dramatic 
and literary notes. But after eighty numbers had 

* ' Tatler,' No. 161. 

appeared 



xiv INTRODUCTION, 

appeared, he was permanently joined by Addison, and 
the essay began to assume the definite form which it 
retained for a century, namely, — that of a short paper, 
generally on one subject, and headed with a Greek or 
Latin motto. Then, in January 1711, the 'Tatler' 
came to an end. Its place was filled, in the following 
March, by the more famous ' Spectator,' which ran 
its career until December, 1712. After this, in 171 3, 
came the ' Guardian ;' and in 1714 an eighth volume 
of the ' Spectator ' was issued by Addison alone. He 
was also the sole author of the 'Freeholder,* 1715, 
which contains the admirable sketch of the ' Tory 

* Foxhunter.' Steele, on his side, followed up the 

* Guardian ' by the ' Lover,' the ' Reader,' and half-a- 
dozen abortive efforts ; but his real successes, as well 
as those of Addison, were in the three great collec- 
tions for which they worked together. 

Any comparison of these two masters of the 
Eighteenth - Century Essay is as futile as it will 
probably be perpetual. While people continue to 
pit Fielding against Smollett, and Thackeray against 
Dickens, there will always be a party for Addison and 
a party for Steele. The adherents of the former will 
draw conviction from Lord Macaulay's famous defiance 
in the ' Edinburgh ' a-propos of Aikin's ' Life ; ' those 

of 



INTRODUCTION. xv 

of the latter from that vigorous counterblast which 
(dfter ten years' meditation) Mr. Forster sounded in 
the * duarterly.' But the real lovers of literature will 
be content to enjoy the delightfully distinctive charac- 
teristics of both. For them Steele's frank and genial 
humour, his chivalrous attitude to women, and the en- 
gaging warmth and generosity of his nature, will retain 
their attraction, in spite of his literary inequalities and 
structural negligence ; while the occasional coldness 
and restraint of Addison's manner will not prevent 
those who study his work from admiring his unfaihng 
good taste, the archness of his wit, his charming sub- 
humorous gravity, and the perfect keeping of his 
character-painting. It is needless to particularise the 
examples here selected from these writers, for they are 
all masterpieces. 

About four-fifths of the ' Tatler,' * Spectator,* and 
•Guardian' was written by Addison and Steele 
alone. The work of their coadjutors was conse- 
quently limited in extent, and, as a rule, unimportant. 
Budgell, Addison's cousin, whose memory survives 
chiefly by his tragic end, and a malignant couplet 
of Pope, was one of the most regular. Once, 
working on Addison's lines, and aided, it may be, 
by Addison's refining pen, he made a respectable 

addition 



xvi INTRODUCTION. 

addition to the ' Coverley ' series, which is here re- 
printed ; but we have not cared to preserve any further 
examples of his style. From Hughes, again, another 
frequent writer, and an amiable man, whose contribu- 
tions were for the most part in the form of letters, 
nothing has been taken. Next, by the amount of his 
assistance, comes the Bishop of Cloyne and the author 
of * Tar-water ' — the great and good Dr. Berkeley. 
Excellent as they are, however, his papers in the 
* Guardian ' against Collins and the Free-thinkers 
do not come within our scheme. Among the re- 
maining ' occasionals ' were several ' eminent hands.' 
These, however, though they graced the board, did not 
add materially to the feast. Pope, who has a couple 
of papers in the ' Spectator ' and eight in the ' Guar- 
' dian,' is not at his best as an essayist. His satire 
on 'Dedications,'* and his side-laugh at Bossu in 
the ' Receipt to make an Epick Poem,'t are the 
happiest of his efforts. His well-known ironic parallel 
between the pastorals of Ambrose Philips and his 
own J is admirably ingenious ; but, unfortunately, we 
have come to think the one as artificial as the other. 
The ' City Shower ' § of Swift scarcely ranks as an 

* ' Guardian,' No. 4. t 'Guardian,' No. 78. 

t ' Guardian,' No. 40. § ' Tafler,' No. 23S. 



INTRODUCTION. xvii 

essay at all, and his only remaining paper of import- 
ance is a letter on ' Slang.' * This, like Pope's pieces, 
is too exclusively literary for our purpose. Of Con- 
greve, Gay, Tickell, Parnell, and the long list of 
obscurer writers, there is nothing that seems to merit 
the honours of revival. 

Between the 'Guardian' of 171 3 and the ' Ram- 

* bier' of 1750-2, there were a number of periodical 
essayists of varying merit. It is scarcely necessary 
to recall the names of these now forgotten * Intelli- 

* gencers,' ' Moderators,' ' Remembrancers,' and the 
like, the bulk of which were political. Fielding 
places one of them, the ' Freethinker ' of Philips, 
nearly on a level with ' those great originals, the 

* " Tatlers " and "Spectators;"' but the initial 
chapters to the different books of ' Tom Jones ' 
attract us more forcibly to the author's own ' Cham- 

* pion,' written in conjunction with the Ralph who 

* makes Night hideous ' in the ' Dunciad.' Those 
utterances, however, which can with any certainty 
be attributed to Fielding, bear such obvious signs of 
haste that it is scarcely fair to oppose any of them 
to the more finished and leisurely efforts of Addison. 
Another of Fielding's enterprises in the ' Spectator ' 

* 'Tatler,' No. 230. 



xviii INTRODUCTION. 

vein was the 'Covent Garden Journal/ 1752. This, 
besides a remarkable paper on the ' Choice of Books,' 
contains a masterly essay on * Profanity,' * including 
a character sketch of the most vigorous kind ; but 
the very fidelity of the picture unfits it for a modern 
audience. 

Concurrently with the ' Covent Garden Journal * 
appeared the final volume of Johnson's ' Rambler,* 
a work upon the cardinal defect of which its author 
laid his finger when, in later life, he declared it to 
be 'too wordy.' Coming from the Arch-Priest of 
magniloquence, this is no light admission. He seems 
also to have been fully alive to its want of variety, 
and frequently regretted that his labours had not been 
occasionally relieved by some lighter pen, in which 
connection (according to Arthur Murphy) he was accus- 
tomed to quote sonorously his own fine lines to Cave : 

' Non uUa Musis ^agina gratior, 
' Quant qu(B sever is ludicra jungere 
' Novit, fatigatanique nugts 
' Utilibus recreare mentent' 

Lady Mary said in her smart way that the ' Rambler * 
followed the ' Spectator ' as * a packhorse would do a 

* ' Covent Garden Journal,' Nos. 10 and 33. 

' hunter \ ' 



INTRODUCTION. xix 

' hunter ; ' but slow-paced and lumbering as it is, no 
one can fail to recognise the frequent majesty of the 
periods and the uniform vigour of the thought. In 
the twenty-nine papers which Johnson wrote for 
Hawkesworth's ' Adventurer,' the ' Rambler ' style 
is maintained. In the ' Idler,' however, which be- 
longs to a later date, when its author's mind was 
unclouded, and he was comparatively free from the 
daily pressure of necessity, he adopts a simpler and 
Ir less polysyllabic style. It is true that he still speaks 
of the changes of the barometer as ' the fallacious 

* promises ... of the oraculous glasses ; ' but 
his themes are less didactic, and, in an unwieldy 
fashion, almost playful. To select positively humour- 
ous examples from his papers would, notwithstanding, 
be a difficult task. Compared with the somewhat 
similar productions of earlier essayists,* the oft-praised 
'Journey in a Stage-Coach' of the 'Adventurer' is 
poor ; but his large knowledge of literature and lite- 
rary life gives point to the portrait of that inimitably 
common-place critic ' Dick Minim,' though even here 
Addison has anticipated him with ' Sir Timothy 

* Tittle.' t ' Dick Minim' appears to have suggested 

* '•£•, ' Spectator,' No. 132. t ' Tatler,' No. 165. 

three 



XX INTRODUCTION. 

three letters from Reynolds, the first of which, on 

* Art-Connoisseurs,' we have been tempted to repro- 
duce. Neither Langton nor Thomas Warton, both 
of whom gave some assistance in the ' Idler,' supplied 
anything of more importance than this thoughtful, if 
not very satirical, paper by Sir Joshua. 

As already stated, Johnson was only a contributor 
to the ' Adventurer,' 1752, the editor and chief writer 
of which was Dr. Hawkesworth of ' Cook's Voyages,' 
who was aided by Bathurst the physician, and Joseph * 
Warton. ' Jack Hawkesworth,' said Johnson, ' is 

* one of my imitators.' His strength lay chiefly in 
the old-fashioned oriental tale, and his social efforts 
are not very remarkable. In the ' Gradation from a 

* Greenhorn to a Blood ' * there is some useful cos- 
tume ; and there are ludicrous passages in the ' Dis- 

* tresses of an Author invited to read his Play,' where, 
by the way, the writer vindicates his claim to be 
reckoned a follower of ' the great Lexicographer,' by 
speaking of a chance addition to his wig as ' the 

* pendulous reproach to the honours of my head ; ' 
but it would not be possible to admit these two 
papers, as well as some others in the ' Adventurer,* 

* 'Adventurer,' No. 100. f 'Adventurer,' No. 52. 



INTRODUCTION. xxi 

into any modem collection, without what, when they 
were written, would have been styled * judicious cas- 

* tigation.' For our present purpose, therefore, we 
have borrowed nothing from Hawkesworth and his 
colleagues. 

With the exception of Goldsmith's ' Chinese Let- 
' ters ' in the * Public Ledger,' the most noteworthy 
of the remaining Essayists are the 'World,' 1753-6, 
and the ' Connoisseur,' 1754-6. The editor of the 
. former was Edward Moore, author of some once- 
popular ' Fables for the Female Sex.' With the 
assistance of Fielding's friend, Lyttelton, his list of 
contributors was swelled by a number of aristocratic 
amateurs, such as Chesterfield, Horace Walpole, Soame 
Jenyns, Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, Hamilton 
Boyle, and the ' World' became, par excellence, the 
Eighteenth-Century journal ' written by gentlemen 

* for gentlemen,' — ' the bow of Ulysses (as one of the 

* writers put it), in which it was the fashion for men 
' of rank and genius to try their strength.' The 

* Connoisseur,* on the other hand, was mainly the 
work of two friends, George Colman and Bonne! 
Thornton, the Erckmann - Chatrian of their age. 
Whether writing separately or together, their style 
is undistinguishable. They had a few assistants, the 

most 



xxii INTRODUCTION. 

most notable of whom were Cowper the poet, and 
Churchill's friend, the unfortunate Robert Lloyd. 
From the ' Connoisseur ' and the ' World ' we have 
made one or two selections. 

On the * Citizen of the World,' 1760-1, there is no 
need to enlarge. That charm of simplicity and grace, 
of kindliness and gentle humour, which we recognise 
as Goldsmith's special property, requires no fresh de- 
scription. The remaining Essayists of any importance 
may be summarily dismissed. From the Edinburgh 
* Mirror,' 1779-80, and its sequel the * Lounger,' 
1785-7, one paper only has been chosen. But there 
are others which show that Henry Mackenzie, the 
chief writer, is something more than the watery Sterne 
of the ' Man of Feeling ' and ' Julia de Roubigne,' 
and that he had gifts as a humourist and character- 
painter of no mean order. From the ' Observer ' of 
Richard Cumberland, 1785-90, a large proportion of 
which is made up of papers on Greek Literature, we 
have taken nothing. 

A retrospect of the Eighteenth-Century Essayists 
subsequent to the ' Tatler,' ' Spectator ' and ' Guar- 
' dian,' only serves to confirm the supremacy of 
Addison and Steele, Some of their successors ap- 
proached them in serious writing ; others carried the 

lighter 



INTRODUCTION. xxili 

lighter kinds to considerable perfection ; but none 
(Goldsmith alone excepted) really rivalled them in 
that happy mingling of the lively and severe, which 
Johnson envied but could not emulate. In native 
purity of tone, moreover, they were far in advance 
of their age, and were certainly not excelled by any 
of those who followed them. For this reason, no 
less than for their general superiority, their work 
preponderates in the present volume. 

It is only necessary to add, that as the conditions 
under which the essays first appeared make it easy 
to date them accurately, the chronological order has 
been adopted in preference to any more elaborate 
arrangement. With the exception of some retrench- 
ments specified in the notes, and the alteration or 
suppression of a word now and again, the text of the 
best editions has been scrupulously followed. 

Austin Dobson. 



13 Grange Park, 
Ealing, W. 



MR. 



Tatler] N^ I [Steele 

MR. BICKERSTAFF VISITS A FRIEND. 



Interea dulces pendent circum oscula nati : 

Casta pudicitiam servat domus 

— ViRG. 



*" I ''HERE are several persons who have many plea- 
-■- sures and entertainments in their possession 
which they do not enjoy. It is therefore a kind and 
good office to acquaint them with their own happiness, 
and turn their attention to such instances of their good 
fortune which they are apt to overlook. Persons in 
the married state often want such a monitor, and pine 
away their days, by looking upon the same condition 
in anguish and murmur, which carries with it in the 
opinion of others a compHcation of all the pleasures 
of life, and a retreat from its inquietudes. 

I am led into this thought by a visit I made an old 
friend, who was formerly my school-fellow. He came 

to 



2 MR. BICKERSTAFF VISITS A FRIEND. 

to town last week with his family for the winter, and 
yesterday morning sent me word his wife expected me 
to dinner. I am as it were at home at that house, and 
every member of it knows me for their wellwisher. 
I cannot, indeed, express the pleasure it is, to be met 
by the children with so much joy as I am when I go 
thither : the boys and girls strive who shall come first, 
when they think it is I that am knocking at the door ; 
and that child which loses the race to me, runs back 
again to tell the father it is Mr. BickerstafF. This day 
I was led in by a pretty girl, that we all thought must 
have forgot me, for the family has been out of town 
these two years. Her knowing me again was a mighty 
subject with us, and took up our discourse at the first 
entrance. After which, they began to rally me upon 
a thousand little stories they heard in the country 
about my marriage to one of my neighbour's daugh- 
ters : upon which the gentleman, my friendj said— 

* Nay, if Mr. BickerstafF marries a child of any of his 

* old companions, I hope mine shall have the prefer- 

* ence. There is Mrs. Mary is now sixteen, and 
' would make him as fine a widow as the best of them : 

* but I know him too well ; he is so enamoured with 

* the very memory of those who flourished in our 

* youth, that he will not so much as look upon the 

' modern 



MR. BICKERSTAFF VISITS A FRIEND. 5 

' modern beauties. I remember, old gentleman, bow 

* often you went home in a day to refresh your coun- 
' tenance and dress, when Teraminta reigned in your 

* heart. As we came up in the coach, I repeated to 
' my wife some of your verses on her.' With such 
reflections on little pas^sages which happened long ago, 
we passed our time during a cheerful and elegant 
meal. After dinner, his lady left the room, as did 
also the children. As soon as we were alone, he took 
me by the hand — ' Well, my good friend,' says he, 

* I am heartily glad to see thee ; I was afraid you 

* would never have seen all the company that dined 

* with you to-day again. Do not you think the good 

* woman of the house a little altered, since you fol- 
' lowed her from the play-house, to find out who she 

* was for me ? ' I perceived a tear fall down his cheek 
as he spoke, which moved me not a little. But to 
turn the discourse, said I — ' She is not, indeed, quite 

* that creature she was when she returned me the 

* letter I carried from you ; and told me she hoped, as 

* I was a gentleman, I would be employed no more to 

* trouble her, who had never offended me ; but would 
' be so much the gentleman's friend as to dissuade 

* him from a pursuit which he could never succeed in. 

* You may remember, 1 thought her m earnest, and you 

' were 



4 MR. BICKERSTAFF VISITS A FRIEND. 

' were forced to employ 3'our cousin Will, who made 
' his sister get acquainted with her for j'ou. You 

* cannot expect her to be for ever fifteen.' — ' Fifteen ! ' 
replied my good friend ; ' Ah I you little understand, 

* you that have lived a bachelor, how great, how ex- 

* quisite a pleasure there is in being really beloved 1 

* It is impossible that the most beauteous face in 
' nature should raise in me such pl®asing ideas, as 
' when I look upon that excellent woman. That 

* fading in her countenance is chiefly caused by her 

* watching with me in my fever. This was followed 
' by a fit of sickness, which had like to have carried 
' her off last winter. I tell you sincerely, I have so 

* many obligations to her, that I cannot with any 

* sort of moderation think of her present state of 
' health. But as to v/hat you say of fifteen, she gives 

* me every day pleasures beyond what I ever knew in 
' the possession of her beauty, when I was in the 
< vigour of youth. Every moment of her life brings 
' me fresh instances of her complacency to my incli- 

* nations, and her prudence in regard to my fortune. 
' Her face is to me much more beautiful than when I 
' first saw it ; there is no decay in any feature which 

* I cannot trace from the very instant it was occasioned 
' by some anxious concern for my welfare and interests. 

'Thus 



MR. BICKERSTAFF VISITS A FRIEND. 5 

' Thus at the same time, methinks, the love I con- 
' ceived towards her, for what she was, is heightened 

* by my gratitude for what she is. The love of a wife 
' is as much above the idle passion commonly called 
' by that name, as the loud laughter of buffoons is 
' inferior to the elegant mirth of gentlemen. Oh I 

* she is an inestimable jewel. In her examination of 
' her household affairs, she shews a" certain fearful- 

* ness to find a fault, which makes her servants obey 

* her like children ; and the meanest we have has an 

* ingenuous shame for an offence, not always to be 

* seen in children in other families. I speak freely to 

* you, my old friend ; ever since her sickness, things 
' that gave me the quickest joy before, turn now to a 

* certain anxiety. As the children play in the next 

* room, I know the poor things by their steps, and 

* am considering what they must do, should they lose 
< their mother in their tender years. The pleasure I 
' used to take in telling my boy stories of the battles, 
' and asking my girl questions about the disposal of 
' her baby, and the gossiping of it, is turned into 
' inward reflection and melancholy.' 

He would have gone on in this tender way, when 
the good lady entered, and with an inexpressible 
sweetness in her countenance told us, she had been 

searching 



6 MR. BICKERSTAFF VISITS A FRIEND. 

searching her closet for something very good, to treat 
such an old friend as I was. Her husband's eyes 
sparkled with pleasure at the cheerfulness of her 
countenance ; and I saw all his fears vanish in an 
instant. The lady observing something in our looks 
which shewed we had been more serious than ordi- 
nary, and seeing her husband receive her with great 
concern under a forced cheerfulness, immediately 
guessed at what we had been talking of ; and apply- 
ing herself to me, said with a smile—' Mr. Bickerstaff, 

* do not believe a word of what he tells you, I shall 

* still live to have you for my second, as I have often 

* promised you, unless he takes more care of himself 

* than he has done since his coming to town. You 

* must know, he tells me, that he finds London is a 

* much more healthy place than the country ; for he 
' sees several of his old acquaintance and school-fel- 

* lows are here young fellows with fair full-bottomed 
' periwigs. I could scarce keep him this morning 

* from going out open-breasted.' My friend, who is 
always extremely delighted with her agreeable humour, 
made her sit down with us. She did it with that easi- 
ness which is peculiar to women of sense and to 
keep up the good humour she had brought in with 
her, turned her raillery upon me : ' Mr. Bickerstaff, 

* you 



MR. BICKERSTAFF VISITS A FRIEND. 7 

' you remember you followed me one night from the 
' play-house ; supposing you should carry me thither 
* to-morrow night, and lead me into the front-box.' 
This put us into a long field of discourse about the 
beauties, who were mothers to the present, and shined 
in the boxes twenty years ago. I told her I was glad 
she had transferred so many of her charms, and I did 
not question but her eldest daughter was within half a 
year of being a toast. 

We were pleasing ourselves with this fantastical 
preferment of the young lady, when on a sudden we 
were alarmed with the noise of a drum, and immedi- 
ately entered my little godson to give me a point of 
■war. His mother, between laughing and chiding, 
would have put him out of the room ; but I would 
not part with him so. I found, upon conversation 
with him, though he was a little noisy in his mirth, 
that the child had excellent parts, and was a great 
master of all the learning on the other side eight 
5'ears old. I perceived him a very great historian in 
-ZEsop's Fables: but he frankly declared to me his 
mind, that he did not delight in that learning, be- 
cause he did not believe they were true ; for which 
reason I found he had very much turned his studies 
for about a twelvemonth past, into the lives and 

adventures 



8 MR. BICKERSTAFF VISITS A FRIEND. 

adventures of Don Belianis of Greece, Guy of War- 
wick, the Seven Champions, and other historians of 
that age. I could not hut observe the satisfaction the 
father took in the forwardness of his son ; and that 
these diversions might turn to some profit, I found 
the boy had made remarks, which might be of service 
to him during the course of his whole life. He would 
tell you the mismanagements of John Hickathrift, find 
fault with the passionate temper in Bevis of South- 
ampton, and love Saint George for being the cham- 
pion of England ; and by this means, had his thoughts 
insensibly moulded into the notions of discretion, 
virtue, and honour. I was extolling his accomplish- 
ments, when the mother told me, that the little girl 
who led me in this morning, was in her way a better 
scholar than he : ' Betty,' says she, ' deals chiefly in 

* fairies and sprights ; and sometimes in a winter 

* night, will terrify the maids with her accounts, till 

* they are afraid to go up to bed.' 

I sat with them till it was very late, sometimes in 
merry, sometimes in serious discourse, with this par- 
ticular pleasure, which gives the only true relish to all 
conversation, a sense that every one of us liked each 
other. I went home, considering the different con- 
ditions of a married life and that of a bachelor; and 

I 



MR. BICKERSTAFF VISITS A FRIEND. 9 

I must confess it struck me with a secret concern, to 
reflect, that whenever I go off, I shall leave no traces 
behind me. In this pensive mood I returned to my 
family ; that is to say, to my maid, my dog, and 
my cat, who only can be the better or worse for what 
happens to me. 

[Nov. 17, 1709.] 



MR. 



Tatler] N*' 2 [Steele 

MR. BICKERSTAFF VISITS A FRIEND 

— Continued. 



Ut in vita, sic in studiis, pulcherrimum et humanissi- 
mum existimo, severitatem comitatemqtie miscere, ne ilia 
in tristitiam, hac in petulantiam procedat. — Plin. 



I WAS walking about my chamber this morning 
in a very gay humour, when I saw a coach 
stop at my door, and a youth about fifteen alighting 
out of it, whom I perceived to be the eldest son of 
my bosom-friend, that I gave some account of in my 
paper of the seventeenth of the last month. I felt a 
sensible pleasure rising in me at the sight of him, 
my acquaintance having begun with his father when 
he was just such a stripling, and about that very age. 
When he came up to me, he took me by the hand, 
and burst out in tears. I was extremely moved, and 
immediately said — * Child, how does your father do?* 

He began to reply— • My mother ' but could not 

go 



MR. BICKERSTAFF VISITS A FRIEND, ii 

go on for weeping. I went down with him into the 
coach, and gathered out of him, that his mother was 
then dying, and that while the holy man was doing 
the last offices to her, he had taken that time to. come 
and call me to his father, who (he said) would 
certainly break his heart if I did not go and comfort 
him. The child's discretion in coming to me of his 
own head, and the tenderness he shewed for his 
parents, would have quite overpowered me, had I 
not resolved to fortify myself for the seasonable per- 
formances of those duties which I owed to my friend. 
As we were going, I could not but reflect upon the 
character of that excellent woman, and the greatness 
of his grief for the loss of one who has ever been the 
support to him under all other afflictions. ' How,' 
thought I, ' will he be able to bear the hour of her 
' death, that could not, when I was lately with him, 
* speak of a sickness, which was then past, without 
' sorrow ? ' We were now got pretty far into West- 
minster, and arrived at my friend's house. At the 
door of it I met Favonius, not without a secret 
satisfaction to find he had been there. I had formerly 
conversed with him at his house ; and as he abounds 
with that sort of virtue and knowledge which makes 
religion beautiful, and never leads the conversation 

into 



12 MR. BICKERSTAFF VISITS A FRIEND. 

into the violence and rage of party disputes, I listened 
to him with great pleasure. Our discourse chanced 
to be upon the subject of death, which he treated 
with such a strength of reason, and greatness of soul, 
that instead of being terrible, it appeared to a mind 
rightly cultivated, altogether to be contemned, or 
rather to be desired. As I met him at the door, 
I saw in his face a certain glowing of grief and 
humanity, heightened with an air of fortitude and 
resolution, which, as I afterwards found, had such 
an irresistible force, as to suspend the pains of* the 
dying, and the lamentations of the nearest friends 
who attended her. I went up directly to the room 
where she lay, and was met at the entrance by my 
friend, who, notwithstanding his thoughts had been 
composed a little before, at the sight of me turned 
away his face and wept. The little family of children 
renewed the expressions of their sorrow according to 
their several ages and degrees of understanding. The 
eldest daughter was in tears, busied in attendance 
upon her mother ; others were kneeling about the 
bedside : and what troubled me most was to see a 
little boy, who was too young to know the reason, 
weeping only because his sisters did. The only one 
in the room who seemed resigned and comforted was 

the 



MR. BICKERSTAFF VISITS A FRIEND. 13 

the dying person. At my approach to the bedside, 
she told me, with a low broken voice — ' This is 

* kindly done — Take care of your friend — Don't go 

* from him.' She had before taken leave of her 
husband and children, in a manner proper for so 
solemn a parting, and with a gracefulness peculiar 
to a woman of her character. My heart was torn in 
pieces to see the husband on one side suppressing 
and keeping down the swellings of his grief, for fear 
of disturbing her in her last moments ; and the wife 
even at that time concealing the pains she endured, 
for fear of increasing his affliction. She kept her 
eyes upon him for some moments after she grew 
speechless, and soon after closed them for ever. In 
the moment of her departure, my friend (who had 
thus far commanded himself) gave a deep groan, and 
fell into a swoon by her bedside. The distraction 
of the children, who thought they saw both their 
parents expiring together, and now lying dead before 
them, would have melted the hardest heart ; but they 
soon perceived their father recover, whom I helped 
to remove into another room, with a resolution to 
accompany him until the first pangs of his affliction 
were abated. I knew consolation would now be 
impertinent ; and therefore contented myself to sit 

by 



14 MR. BICKERSTAFF VISITS A FRIEND. 

by him, and condole with him in silence. For I 
shall here use the method of an ancient author, who 
in one of his epistles relating the virtues and death of 
Macrinus's wife, expresses himself thus : 'I shall 

* suspend my advice to this best of friends, until 
' he is made capable of receiving it by those three 
' great remedies — Necessitas ipsa, dies longa, et satietas 

* doloris — the necessity of submission, length of time, 

* and satiety of grief.' 

In the mean time, I cannot but consider with 
much commiseration, the melancholy state of one 
who has had such a part of himself torn from him, 
and which he misses in every circumstance of life. 
His condition is like that of one who has lately lost 
his right-arm, and is every moment offering to help 
himself with it. He does not appear to himself the 
same person in his house, at his table, in company, 
or in retirement ; and loses the relish of all the 
pleasures and diversions that were before entertaining 
to him by her participation of them. The most 
agreeable objects recal the sorrow for her with whom 
he used to enjoy them. This additional satisfaction, 
from the taste of pleasures in the society of one we 
love, is admirably described in Milton, who repre- 
sents Eve, though in Paradise itself, no farther 

pleased 



MR. BICKERSTAFF VISITS A FRIEND. 15 

pleased with the beautiful objects around her, than 
as she sees them in company with Adam, in that 
passage so inexpressibly charming— 



With thee conversing, I forgot all time, 
All seasons, and their change ; all please alike. 
Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet 
With charm of ea^ liest birds ; pleasant the sun, 
When first on this delightful land he spreads 
His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit and flower, 
Glist'ring with dew ; fragrant the fertile earth 
After soft show'rs, and sweet the coming on 
Of grateful ev'ning mild ; the silent night, 
With this her solemn bird, and this fair moon, 
And these the gems of heaven, her starry train. 
But neither breath of morn when she ascends 
With charm of earliest birds, nor rising sun 
In this delightful land, nor herb, fruit, flower, 
Glist'ring with dew, nor fragrant after showers. 
Nor grateful ev'ning mild, nor silent night. 
With this her solemn bird, nor walk by moon. 
Of glittering star-light, without thee is sweet. 



The variety of images in this passage is infinitely 
pleasing, and the recapitulation of each particular 
image, with a little varying of the expression, makes 
one of the finest turns of words that I have ever 
seen : which I rather mention, because Mr. Dryden 

has 



i6 MR. BICKERSTAFF VISITS A FRIEND. 

has said in his preface to Juvenal, that he could meet 
with no turn of words in Milton. 

It may be further observed, that though the sweet- 
ness of these verses has something in it of a pastoral, 
yet it excels the ordinary kind, as much as the scene 
of it is above an ordinary field or meadow. I might 
here, since I am accidentally led into this subject, 
shew several passages in Milton that have as excellent 
turns of this nature, as any of our English poets 
whatsoever; but shall only mention that which fol- 
lows, in which he describes the fallen angels engaged 
in the intricate disputes of predestination, free-will, 
and fore-knowledge ; and to humour the perplexity, 
makes a kind of labyrinth in the very words that 
describe it — 

Others apart sate on a hill retir'd, 
In thoughts more elevate, and reasoned high 
Of providence, fore-knowledge, will, and fate, 
Fix'd fate, free-will, fore-knowledge absolute. 
And found no end in wand'ring mazes lost. 

[Dec. 31, 1709.] 



THE 



Tatler] N° 3 [Steele 

THE TRUMPET CLUB. 



Haheo seneduti magnam gratiam, qua mihi sermonis 
aviditatem auxit, potioms et cihi sustulit. 

— TuLL. DE Sen. 



A FTER having applied my mind with more than 
-^ ^ ordinary attention to my studies, it is my 
usual custom to relax and unbend it in the conversa- 
tion of such as are rather easy than shining com- 
panions. This 1 find particularly necessary for me 
before I retire to rest, in order to draw my slumbers 
upon me by degrees, and fall asleep insensibly. This 
is the particular use I make of a set of heavy honest 
men, with whom I have passed many hours with 
much indolence, though not with great pleasure. 
Their conversation is a kind of preparative for sleep : 
it takes the mind down from its abstractions, leads it 
into the familiar traces of thought, and lulls it into 
4 that 



i8 THE TRUMPET CLUB. 

that state of tranquillity which is the condition of a 
thinking man, when he is but half awake. After this, 
my reader will not be surprised to hear the account 
which I am about to give of a club of my own con- 
temporaries, among whom I pass two or three hours 
every evening. This I look upon as taking my first 
nap before I go to bed. The truth of it is, I should 
think myself unjust to posterity, as well as to the 
society at the Trumpet, of which I am a member, did 
not I in some part of my writings give an account of 
the persons among whom I have passed almost a 
sixth part of my time for these last forty years. Our 
club consisted originally of fifteen ; but partly by 
the severity of the law in arbitrary times, and partly 
by the natural effects of old-age, we are at present 
reduced to a third part of that number : in which, 
however, we have this consolation, that the best 
company is said to consist of five persons. I must 
confess, besides the afore-mentioned benefit which I 
meet with in the conversation of this select society, 
I am not the less pleased with the company, in that 
I find myself the greatest wit among them, and am 
heard as their oracle in all points of learning and 
difficulty. 

Sir JeofFrey Notch, who is the oldest of the club, 

has 



THE TRUMPET CLUB. 19 

has been in possession of the right-hand chair time 
out of mind, and is the only man among us that has 
the liberty of stirring the fire. This our foreman is 
a gentleman of an ancient family, that came to a 
great estate some years before he had discretion, and 
run it out in hounds, horses, and cock-fighting ; for 
\^hich reason he looks upon himself as an honest, 
worthy gentleman, who has had misfortunes in the 
world, and calls every thriving man a pitiful upstart. 

Major Matchlock is the next senior, who served in 
the last civil wars, and has all the battles by heart. 
He does not think any action in Europe worth talking 
of since the fight of Marston-Moor ; and every night 
tells us of his having been knocked off his horse at 
the rising of the London apprentices ; for which he 
is in great esteem among us. 

Honest old Dick Reptile is the third of our society. 
He is a good-natured indolent man, who speaks little 
himself, but laughs at our jokes ; and brings his 
young nephew along with him, a youth of eighteen 
years old, to shew him good company, and give him 
a taste of the world. This young fellow sits generally 
silent ; but whenever he opens his mouth, or laughs 
at any thing that passes, he is constantly told by his 
uncle, after a jocular manner—* Aye, aye, Jack, you 

' young 



20 THE TRUMPET CLUB. 

* young men think us fools ; but we old men know 
' you are.' 

The greatest wit of our company, next to myself, 
is a Bencher of the neighbouring inn, who in his 
youth frequented the ordinaries about Charing Cross, 
and pretends to have been intimate with Jack Ogle. 
He has about ten distiches of Hudibras without book, 
and never leaves the club till he has applied them all. 
If any modern wit be mentioned, or any town-frolic 
spoken of, he shakes his head at the dulness of the 
present age, and tells us a story of Jack Ogle. 

For my own part, I am esteemed among them, 
because they see I am something respected by others; 
though at the same time I understand by their be- 
haviour, that I am considered by them as a man of 
a great deal of learning, but no knowledge of the 
world ; insomuch that the Major sometimes, in the 
height of his military pride, calls me the Philosopher : 
and Sir Jeoffrey, no longer ago than last night, upon 
a dispute what day of the month it was then in 
Holland, pulled his pipe out of his mouth, and cried 
— ' What does the scholar say to it ? ' 

Our club meets precisely at six a clock in the 
evening ; but I did not come last night until half an 
hour after seven, by which means I escaped the battle 

of 



THE TRUMPET CLUB. zx 

of Naseby, which the Major usually begins at about 
three quarters after six : I found also, that my good 
friend, the Bencher, had already spent three of his 
distiches ; and only waited an opportunity to hear a 
sermon spoken of, that he might introduce the couplet 
where 'a stick' rhymes to 'ecclesiastic* At my 
entrance into the room, they were naming a red 
petticoat and a cloak, by which I found that the 
Bencher had been diverting them with a story of 
Jack Ogle. 

I had no sooner taken my seat, but Sir JeofFrey, to 
shew his good-will towards me, gave me a pipe of his 
own tobacco, and stirred up the fire. I look upon it 
as a point of morality, to be obliged by those who 
endeavour to oblige me ; and therefore, in requital 
for his kindness, and to set the conversation a-going, 
I took the best occasion I could to put him upon 
telling us the story of old Gantlett, which he always 
does with very particular concern. He traced up his 
descent on both sides for several generations, de- 
scribing his diet and manner of life, with his several 
battles, and particularly that in which he fell. This 
Gantlett was a game cock, upon whose head the 
knight, in his youth, had won five hundred pounds, 
and lost two thousand. This naturally set the Major 

upon 



22 THE TRUMPET CLUB. 

upon the account of Edge-hill fight, and ended in a 
duel of Jack Ogle's. 

Old Reptile was extremely attentive to all that was 
said, though it was the same he had heard every 
night for these twenty years ; and upon all occasions 
Vv^inked upon his nephew to mind what passed. 

This may suffice to give the world a taste of our 
innocent conversation, which we spun out until about 
ten of the clock, when my maid came with a lanthorn 
to light me home. I could not but reflect wdth 
myself, as I was going out, upon the talkative 
humour of old men, and the little figure which that 
part of life makes in one who cannot employ his 
natural propensity in discourses which would make 
him venerable. I must own, it makes me very 
melancholy in company, when I hear a young man 
begin a story ; and have often observed, that one of 
a quarter of an hour long in a man of five-and- 
twenty, gathers circumstances every time he tells 
it, until it grows into a long Canterbury tale of two 
hours by that time he is threescore. 

The only way of avoiding such a trifling and 
frivolous old age is, to lay up in our way to it such 
stores of knowledge and observations, as may make 
us useful and agreeable in our declining years. The 

mind 



THE TRUMPET CLUB. 25 

mind of man in a long life will become a magazine 
of wisdom or folly, and will consequently discharge 
itself in something impertinent or improving. For 
which reason, as there is nothing more ridiculous 
than an old trifling story-teller, so there is nothing 
more venerable, than one who has turned his experi- 
ence to the entertainment and advantage of mankind. 

In short, we, who are in the last stage of life, and 
are apt to indulge ourselves in talk, ought to consider, 
if what we speak be worth being heard, and endea- 
vour to make our discourse like that of Nestor, which 
Homer compares to the flowing of honey for its 
sweetness. 

I am afraid I shall be thought guilty of this excess 
I am speaking of, when I cannot conclude without 
observing, that Milton certainly thought of this 
passage in Homer, when in his description of an 
eloquent spirit, he says — ' His tongue dropped 



[Feb. II, 1710.] 



THE 



Tatler] N 4 [Addison 

THE POLITICAL UPHOLSTERER. 



aliena negotta curat, 

Excussus propriis. — HoR. 



' i ^HERE lived some years since within my neigh- 
-■- bourhood a very grave person, an Upholsterer, 
who seemed a man of more than ordinary application 
to business. He was a very early riser, and was 
often abroad two or three hours before any of his 
neighbours. He had a particular carefulness in the 
knitting of his brows, and a kind of impatience in 
all his motions, that plainly discovered he was always 
intent on matters of importance. Upon my enquiry 
into his life and conversation, I found him to be the 
greatest newsmonger in our quarter ; that he rose 
before day to read the Postman ; and that he would 
take two or three turns to the other end of the town 
before his neighbours were up, to see if there were 

any 



THE POLITICAL UPHOLSTERER. 25 

any Dutch mails come in. He had a wife and several 
children ; but was much more Inquisitive to know 
what passed in Poland than in his own family, and 
was in greater pain and anxiety of mind for King 
Augustus's welfare than that of his nearest relations. 
He looked extremely thin in a dearth of news, and 
never enjoyed himself in a westerly wind. This 
indefatigable kind of life was the ruin of his shop ; 
for about the time that his favourite prince left the 
crown of Poland, he broke and disappeared. 

This man and his affairs had been long out of my 
mind, till about three days ago, as I was walking in 
St. James's Park, I heard somebody at a distance 
hemming after me : and who should it be but my 
old neighbour the Upholsterer ? I saw he was 
reduced to extreme poverty, by certain shabby super- 
fluities in his dress : for notwithstanding that it was 
a very sultry day for the time of the year, he wore 
a loose greatcoat and a muff, with a long campaign 
wig out of curl; to which he had added the orna- 
ment of a pair of black garters buckled under the 
knee. Upon his coming up to me, I was going to 
enquire into his present circumstances ; but was pre- 
vented by his asking me, with a whisper. Whether 
the last letters brought any accounts that one might 

rely 



26 THE POLITICAL UPHOLSTERER. 

rely upon from Bender? I told him, None that I 
heard of; and asked him, whether he had yet married 
his eldest daughter ? He told me, No, ' But pray,* 
says he, ' tell me sincerely, what are your thoughts 
' of the King of Sweden ? ' For though his wife 
and children were starving, I found his chief concern 
at present was for this great monarch. I told him, 
that I looked upon him as one of the first heroes of 
the age. * But pray,' says he, ' do you think there 

* is any thing in the story of his wound ? ' And 
finding me surprized at the question — ' Nay,' says 
he, ' I only propose it to you.' I answered, that I 
thought there was no reason to doubt of it. 'But 
' why in the heel,' says he, ' more than any other part 

* of the body?' — ' Because,' said I, 'the bullet chanced 

* to light there.' 

This extraordinary dialogue was no sooner ended, 
but he began to launch out into a long dissertation 
upon the affairs of the North ; and after having spent 
some time on them, he told me he was m great per- 
plexity how to reconcile the Supplement with the 
English Post, and had been just now examining 
what the other papers say upon the same subject. 
*The Daily Courant,' says he, 'has these words: 
•' We have advices from very good hands, that a 

" certain 



THE POLITICAL UPHOLSTERER. 27 

** certain prince has some matters of great importance 
*' under consideration." This is very mysterious; 

* but the Post-boy leaves us more in the dark, for he 
'tells us "That there are private intimations of 
" measures taken by a certain prince, which time will 
** bring to hght." Now the Postman,' says he, 

* who uses to be veiy clear, refers to the same news 

* in these words: " The late conduct of a certain 
" prince affords great matter of speculation." This 

* certain prince,' says the Upholsterer, ' whom they 

* are all so cautious of naming, I take to be .' 

Upon which, though there was nobody near us, he 
whispered something in my ear, which I did not 
hear, or think worth my while to make him repeat. 

We were now got to the upper end of the Mall, 
where were three or four very odd fellows sitting 
together upon the bench. These I found were all 
of them politicians, who used to sun themselves in 
that place every day about dinner-time. Observing 
them to be curiosities in their kind, and my friend's 
acquaintance, I sat down among them. 

The chief politician of the bench was a great 
asserter of paradoxes. He told us, with a seeming 
concern, That by some news he had lately read from 
Muscov}% it appeared to him that there was a storm 

gatherin'^ 



28 THE POLITICAL UPHOLSTERER. 

gathering in the Black Sea, which might in time do 
hurt to the naval forces of this nation. To this he 
added, That for his part, he could not wish to see the 
Turk driven out of Europe, which he believed could 
not but be pre] udicial to our woollen manufacture. He 
then told us, That he looked upon those extraordinary 
revolutions which had lately happened in those parts 
of the world, to have risen chiefly from two persons 
who were not much talked of ; ' And those,' says he, 
'are Prince Menzikoff, and the Duchess of Mirandola.' 
He backed his assertions with so many broken hints, 
and such a show of depth and wisdom, that we gave 
ourselves up to his opinions. 

The discourse at length fell upon a point which 
seldom escapes a knot of true-born Englishmen, 
Whether, in case of a religious war, the Protestants 
would not be too strong for the Papists ? This we 
unanimously determined on the Protestant side. 
One who sat on my right-hand, and, as I found by 
his discourse, had been in the West Indies, assured 
us. That it would be a very easy matter for the 
Protestants to beat the Pope at sea ; and added. That 
whenever such a war does break out, it must turn to 
the good of the Leeward Islands. Upon this, one 
who sat at the end of the bench, and, as I afterwards 

found 



THE POLITICAL UPHOLSTERER. 29 

found, was the geographer of the company, said, 
that in case the Papists should drive the Protestants 
from these parts of Europe, when the worst came to 
the worst, it would be impossible to beat them out 
of Norway and Greenland, provided the Northern 
crowns hold together, and the Czar of Muscovy stand 
neuter. 

He further told us, for our comfort, that there were 
vast tracts of land about the Pole, inhabited neither 
by Protestants nor Papists, and of greater extent 
than all the Roman Catholic dominions in Europe. 

When we had fully discussed this point, my friend 
the Upholsterer began to exert himself upon the 
present negociations of peace ; in which he deposed 
princes, settled the bounds of kingdoms, and balanced 
the power of Europe, with great justice and impar- 
tiality. 

I at length took my leave of the company, and was 
going away ; but had not gone thirty yards, before 
the Upholsterer hemmed again after me. Upon his 
advancing towards me, with a whisper, I expected to 
hear some secret piece of news, which he had not 
thought fit to communicate to the bench; but instead 
of that, he desired me in my ear to lend him half a 
crown. In com.passion to so needy a statesman, and 



30 THE POLITICAL VPHOLSTERE.l 

to dissipate the confusion I found he was in, I told 
him, if he pleased, I would give him five shillings, to 
receive five pounds of him when the Great Turk was 
driven out of Constantinople ; which he very readily 
accepted, but not before he had laid down to me the 
impossibility of such an event, as the affairs of Europe 
now stand. 

This paper I design for the particular benefit of 
those worthy citizens who live more in a coffee-house 
than in their shops, and whose thoughts are so taken 
up with the affairs of the Allies, that they forget their 
customers. 

[April 6, 1 7 10.] 



TOM 



Tatler] rs 5 [Addison 

TOM FOLIO. 



Faciunt iice intelligendo, tit nihil intclUgant. 
— Ter. 



''T^OM FOLIO is a broker in learning, employed 
■*■ to get together good editions, and stock the 
libraries of great men. There is not a sale of books 
begins till Tom Foho is seen at the door. There is 
not an auction where his name is not heard, and that 
too in the very nick of time, in the critical moment, 
before the last decisive stroke of the hammer. There 
is not a subscription goes forward, in which Tom is 
not privy to the first rough draught of the proposals ; 
nor a catalogue printed, that doth not come to him 
wet from the press. He is an universal scholar, so 
far as the title-page of all authors, knows the manu- 
scripts in which they were discovered, the editions 
through which they have passed, with the praises or 

censures 



32 TOM FOLIO. 

censures which they have received from the several 
members of the learned world. He has a greater 
esteem for Aldus and Elzevir, than for Virgil and 
Horace. If you talk of Herodotus, he breaks out 
into a panegyric upon Harry Stephens. He thinks 
he gives you an account of an author when he tells 
you the subject he treats of, the name of the editor, 
and the year in which it was printed. Or if you 
draw him into further particulars, he cries up the 
goodness of the paper, extols the diligence of the 
corrector, and is transported with the beauty of the 
letter. This he looks upon to be sound learning 
and substantial criticism. As for those who talk of 
the fineness of style, and the justness of thought, or 
describe the brightness of any particular passages; 
nay, though they themselves write in the genius and 
spirit of the author they admire, Tom looks upon 
them as men of superficial learning, and flashy parts. 
I had yesterday morning a visit from this learned 
idiot (for that is the light in which I consider every 
pedant); when I discovered in him some little touches 
of the coxcomb, which I had not before observed. 
Being very full of the figure which he makes in the 
republic of letters, and wonderfully satisfied with his 
great stock of knowhdge, he gave me broad intima- 
tions 



TOM FOLIO. 



33 



tionSj that he did not believe in all points as his fore- 
fathers had done. He then communicated to me a 
thought of a certain author upon a passage of Virgil's 
account of the dead, which I made the subject of a 
late paper. This thought hath taken very much 
among men of Tom's pitch and understanding, 
though universally exploded by all that know how 
to construe Virgil, or have any relish of antiquity. 
Not to trouble my reader with it, I found upon 
the whole, that Tom did not believe a future state 
of rewards and punishments, because ^Eneas, at 
his leaving the empire of the dead, passed through 
the Gate of Ivory, and not through that of Horn. 
Knowing that Tom had not ^ense enough to give up 
an opinion which he had once received, that he might 
avoid wrangling, I told him, that Virgil possibly had 
his oversights as well as another author. ' Ah 1 Mr. 
' Bickerstaff,' says he, ' you would have another 

* opinion of him, if you would read him in Daniel 

* Heinsius's edition. I have perused him myself 

* several times in that edition,' continued he ; ' and 

* after the strictest and most malicious examination, 

* could find but two faults in him ; one of them is 
' in the .Eneids, where there are two commas instead 

* of a parenthesis ; and another in the third Georgic, 

' where 



34 TOM FOLIO. 

* where you may find a semicolon turned upside 

* down.' — ' Perhaps,' said I, ' these were not Virgil's 

* faults, but those of the transcriber.' — ' I do not 

* design it,' says Tom, * as a reflection on Virgil : on 

* the contrary, I know that all the manuscripts re- 

* claim against such a punctuation. Oh ! Mr. Bicker- 

* staff,' says he, ' what would a man give to see one 

* simile of Virgil writ in his own hand I ' I asked 
him which was the simile he meant ; but was answered 
— ' Any simile in Virgil.' He then told me all the 
secret history in the commonwealth of learning ; of 
modern pieces that had the names of ancient authors 
annexed to them; of all the books that were now 
writing or printing in the several parts of Europe ; of 
many amendments which are made, and not yet pub- 
lished ; and a thousand other particulars, which 1 would 
not have my memory burdened with for a Vatican. 

At length, being fully persuaded that I thoroughly 
admired him, and looked upon him as a prodigy of 
learning, he took his leave. I know several of Tom's 
class who are professed admirers of Tasso, without 
understanding a word of Italian : and one in particu- 
lar, that carries a Pastor Fido in his pocket, in which 
I am sure he is acquainted with no other beauty but 
the clearness of the character. 

There 



TOM FOLIO. 35 

There is another kind of pedant, who, with all 
Tom Foho's impertinences, hath greater superstruc- 
tures and embelhshments of Greek and Latin ; and is 
still more insupportable than the other, in the same 
degree as he is more learned. Of this kind very often 
are editors, comrrentators, interpreters, scholiasts, and 
critics ; and, in short, all men of deep learning with- 
out common sense. These persons set a greater value 
on themselves for having found out the meaning of a 
passage in Greek, than upon the author for having 
written it ; nay, will allow the passage itself not to 
have any beauty in it, at the same time that they 
would be considered as the greatest men of the age, 
for having interpreted it. They will look with con- 
tempt on the most beautiful poems that have been 
composed by any of their contemporaries ; but will 
lock themselves up in their studies for a twelvemonth 
together, to correct, publish, and expound, such trifles 
of antiquity, as a modern author would be contemned 
for. Men of the strictest morals, severest lives, and 
the gravest professions, will write volumes upon an 
idle sonnet, that is originally in Greek or Latin ; give 
editions of the most immoral authors ; and spin out 
whole pages upon the various readings of a lewd ex- 
pression. All that can be said in excuse for them is. 

That 



36 TOM FOLIO. 

That their works sufficiently shew they have no taste 
of their authors; and that what they do in this kind is 
out of their great learning, and not out of any levity 
or lasciviousness of temper. 

A pedant of this nature is wonderfully well de- 
scribed in six lines of Boileau, with which I shall 
conclude his character. 

Un pedant enyvre de sa vaine science, 
Tout herisse de Grec, tout bouffi d'arrogance, 
Et qui de mille auteurs retenus mot par mot, 
Dan5 sa tete entassez n'a souvent fait qu'un sot, 
Croit qu'un livre fait tout, et que sans Aristote 
La raison ne voit goutte, et le bon sens radote. 

[April 13, 1710.] 



NED 



Tatler] N 6 [Addison 

NED SOFTLY THE POET. 



Idem inficeto est inficetior rure, 

Simtil poemata attigit ; neque idem unquam 

Jique est heatus, ac poema quum scribit : 

Tarn gaudet in se, tamque se ipse niiratur. 

Nimirum idem omnes falUmur ; neque est quisquam 

Oiiem non in aliqua re videre Suffenum 

Possis — Catul. 



T YESTERDAY came hither about two hours 
-^ before the company generally make their 
appearance, with a design to read over all the news- 
papers; but upon my sitting down, I was accosted 
by Ned Softly, who saw me from a corner in the 
other end of the room, where I found he had been 
writing something. ' Mr. Bickerstaff,' says he, ' I 

• observe by a late paper of yours, that you and I 

• are just of a humour ; for you must know, of all 

• impertinences, there is nothing which I so much 

' hate 



38 NED SOFTLY THE POET. 

' hate as news. I never read a gazette in my life; 
' and never trouble my head about our armies, 
' whether they win or lose ; or in what part of the 
' world they lie encamped.' Without giving me time 
to reply, he drew a paper of verses out of his pocket, 
tellmg me, That he had something which would 
entertain me more agreeably ; and that he would 
desire my judgment upon every line, for that we 
had time enough before us until the company 
came in. 

Ned Softly is a very pretty poet, and a great admirer 
of easy lines. Waller is his favourite ; and as that 
admirable writer has the best and worst verses of 
any among pur great English poets, Ned Softly has 
got all the bad ones without book ; which he 
repeats upon occasion, to shew his reading, and 
garnish his conversation. Ned is indeed a true 
English reader, incapable of relishing the great and 
masterly strokes of this art ; but wonderfully pleased 
with the little Gothic ornaments of epigrammatical 
conceits, turns, points, and quibbles, which are so 
frequent in the most admired of our English poets, 
and practised by those who want genius and strength 
to represent, after the manner of the ancients, sim- 
plicity in its natural beauty and perfection. 

Finding 



NED SOFTLY THE POET. 39 

Finding myself unavoidably engaged in such a 
conversation, I was resolved to turn my pain into a 
pleasure, and to divert myself as well as I could with 
so very odd a fellow. * You must understand,' says 
Ned, ' that the sonnet I am going to read to you was 

* written upon a lady who shewed me some verses of 

* her own making, and is, perhaps, the best poet of 

* our age. But you shall hear it.' Upon which he 
began to read as follows : 



TO MIRA, ON HER INCOMPARABLE POEMS. 



TX7HEN dress'd in laurel wreaths you shine, 

And tune your soft melodious notes. 
You seem a sister of the Nine, 
Or Phoebus' self in petticoats. 



I fancy, when your song you sing 
(Your song you sing with so much art), 

Your pen was pluck'd from Cupid's wing ; 
For, ah ! it wounds me like his dart. 

' Why,' says I, ' this is a little nosegay of conceits, 
' a very lump of salt : every verse hath something in 
' it that piques ; and then the Dart in the last line 
* is certainly as pretty a sting in the tail of an 

• epigram 



40 NED SOFTLY THE POET. 

' epigram (for so I tliink your critics call it) as 

* ever entered into the thought of a poet.* — ' Dear 

* Mr. BickerstaflF,' says he, shaking me by the hand, 
' everybody knows you to be a judge of these 
' things ; and to tell you truly, I read over Roscom- 
' mon's translation of Horace's Art of Poetry three 
' several times, before I sat down to write the sonnet 

* which I have shewn j'ou. But you shall hear it 

* again, and pray observe every line of it, for not one 
' of them shall pass without your approbation. 

When dress'd in laurel wreaths you shine. 

* This is,' says he, ' when you have your garland 

* on ; when you are writing verses.' To which I 
replied, ' 1 know your meaning : A metaphor ! ' — 

* The same,' said he, and went on. 

And tune your soft melodious notes. 

* Pray observe the gliding of that verse ; there is 

* scarce a consonant in it : I took care to make it run 

* upon liquids. Give me your opinion of it.' — 

* Truly,' said I, ' I tliink it as good as the former.' — 

* I am very glad to hear you say so,* says he ; 'but 

* mind the next : 

You seem a sister of the Nine. 

*That 



NED SOFTLY THE POET. 41 

* That is,' says he, 'you seem a sister of the Muses; 
' for, if you look into ancient authors, you will find it 

* was their opinion, that there were nine of them.' — 
' I remember it very well,' said I : ' but pray proceed.' 

Or Phoebus' self in petticoats. 

' Phoebus,' says he, ' was the god of poetry. These 

* little instances, Mr. Bickerstaff, shew a gentleman's 
' reading. Then to take off from the air of learning, 

* which Phoebus and the Muses have given to this first 

* stanza, you may observe how it falls, all of a suddea 

* into the familiar — " in petticoats 1 " ' 

Or Phoebus' self in petticoats. 

' Let us now,' says I, ' enter upon the second 

* stanza ; I find the first line is still a continuation of 

* the metaphor.' 

I fancy, when your song you sing. 

* It is very right,' says he ; ' but pray observe the 
turn of words in those two lines. I was a whole 
hour in adjusting of them, and have still a doubt 
upon me whether, in the second line it should be 
— "Your song you sing," or, "You sing your 
" song." You shall hear them both : — 

I 



NED SOFTLY THE POET. 



I fancy, when your song you sing 
(Your song you sing with so much art) ; 



I fancy when your song you sing 
(You sing your song with so much art). 

' Truly,' said I, ' the turn is so natural either way, 

* that you have made me almost giddy with it.'— 

* Dear Sir,' said he, grasping me by the hand, ' you 

* have a great deal of patience ; but pray what do you 

* think of the next verse ? — 

Your pen was pluck'd from Cupid's wing. 

* Think ! ' says I ; ' I think you have made Cupid 

* look like a little goose.' — * That was my meaning,* 
says he : ' I think the ridicule is well enough hit off. 

* But we come now to the last, which sums up the 

* whole matter. 

For, Ah ! it wounds me like his dart. 

' Pray how do you like that Ah I doth it not make 

* a pretty figure in that place ? Ah ! — it looks as if I 

* felt the dart, and cried out at being pricked with it. 

For, Ah ! it wounds me like his dart. 

* My friend Dick Easy,' continued he, ' assured me 

' he 



NED SOFTLY THE POET. 43 

' he would rather have written iha.\.Ah! than to have 

* been the author of the iEneid. He indeed objected, 
' that I made Mira's pen like a quill in one of the lines, 

* and like a dart in the other. But as to that ' — ' Oh ! 

* as to that,' says I, ' it is but supposing Cupid to be 

* like a porcupine, and his quills and darts will be the 

* same thing.' He was going to embrace me for the 
hint ; but half-a-dozen critics coming into the room, 
whose faces he did not like, he conveyed the sonnet 
into his pocket, and whispered me in the ear, he 
would shew it me again as soon as his man had 
written it over fair. 

[April 25, 1710.J 



RECOLLECTIONS 



Tatler] N° 7 [Steele 

RECOLLECTIONS OF CHILDHOOD. 



Dies, ni fallor, adest, quern semper acerbum. 

Semper honorainiii, sic dii voluistis, habeho. 

— ViRG. 



^ I ^HERE are those among mankind, who can enjoy 
-*- no rehsh of their being, except the world is 
made acquainted with all that relates to them, and 
think everythmg lost that passes unobserved ; but 
others find a solid delight in stealing by the crowd, 
and modelling their life after such a manner, as is as 
much above the approbation as the practice of the 
vulgar. Life being too short to give instances great 
enough of true friendship or good-will, some sages 
have thought it pious to preserve a certain reverence 
for the Manes of their deceased friends ; and have 
■withdrawn themselves from the rest of the world 
at certain seasons, to commemorate in their own 

thoughts 



RECOLLECTIONS OF CHILDHOOD. 45 

thoughts such of their acquaintance who have gone 
before them out of this life ; and indeed, when we 
are advanced in years, there is not a more pleasing 
entertainment, than to recollect in a gloomy moment 
the many we have parted with, that have been dear 
and agreeable to us, and to cast a melancholy thought 
or two after those, with whom, perhaps, we have 
indulged ourselves in whole nights of mirth and 
jollity. With such inclinations in my heart I went 
to my closet yesterday in the evening, and resolved to 
be sorrowful ; upon which occasion I could not but 
look with disdain upon myself, that though all the 
reasons which I had to lament the loss of many of my 
friends are now as forcible as at the moment of their 
departure, yet did not my heart swell with the same 
sorrow which I felt at the time ; but I could, without 
tears, reflect upon many pleasing adventures I have 
had with some, who have long been blended with 
common earth. Though it is by the benefit of 
Nature that length of time thus blots out the violence 
of afflictions ; yet with tempers too much given to 
pleasure, it is almost necessary to revive the old places 
of grief in our memory ; and ponder step by step on 
past life, to lead the mind into that sobriety of thought 
which poises the heart, and makes it beat with due 

time. 



46 RECOLLECTIONS OF CHILDHOOD. 

time, without being quickened with desire, or re- 
tarded with despair, from its proper and equal motion. 
When we wind up a clock that is out of order, to 
make it go well for the future, we do not immediately 
set the hand to the present instant, but we make 
it strike the round of all its hours, before it can 
recover the regularity of its time. Such, thought I, 
shall be my method this evening ; and since it is that 
day of the j^ear which I dedicate to the memory of 
such in another life as I much delighted in when 
living, an hour or two shall be sacred to sorrow and 
their memory, while I run over all the melancholy 
circumstances of this kind which have occurred to me 
in my whole life. 

The first sense of sorrow I ever knew was upon the 
death of my father, at which time I was not quite five 
years of age ; but was rather amazed at what all the 
house meant, than possessed with a real understanding 
why nobody was willing to play with me. I remem- 
ber I went into the room where his body lay, and my 
mother sat weeping alone by it. I had my battledore 
in my hand, and fell a-beating the coffin, and calling 
Papa ; for, 1 know not how, I had some slight idea 
that he was locked up there. My mother catched me 
in her arms, and, transported beyond all patience of the 

silent 



RECOLLECTIONS OF CHILDHOOD. 47 

silent grief she was before in, she aUnost smothered 
me in her embrace ; and told me in a flood of tears. 
Papa could not hear me, and would play with me no 
more, for they were going to put him underground, 
where he could never come to us again. She was 
a very beautiful woman, of a noble spirit, and there 
was a dignity in her grief amidst all the wildness 
of her transport ; which, methought, struck me with 
an instinct of sorrow, that before I was sensible of 
what it was to grieve, seized my very soul, and has 
made pity the weakness of my heart ever since. The 
mind in infancy is, methinks, like the body in em- 
bryo ; and receives impressions so forcible, that they 
are as hard to be removed by reason, as any mark, 
with which a child is born, is to be taken away by 
any future application. Hence it is, that good-nature 
in me is no merit ; but having been so frequently 
overwhelmed with her tears before 1 knew the cause 
of any affliction, or could draw defences from my own 
judgment, I imbibed commiseration, remorse, and an 
unmanly gentleness of mind, which has since ensnared 
me into ten thousand calamities ; and from whence I 
can reap no advantage, except it be, that, in such a 
humour as I am now in, I can the better indulge 
myself in the softnesses of humanity, and enjoy that 

sweet 



48 RECOLLECTIONS OF CHILDHOOD. 

sweet anxiety that arises from the memory of past 
afflictions. 

We, that are very old, are better able to remember 
things which befel us in our distant youth, than the 
passages of later days. For this reason it is, that the 
companions of my strong and vigorous years present 
themselves more immediately to me in this office of 
sorrow. Untimely and unhappy deaths are what we 
are most apt to lament ; so little are we able to make it 
indifferent when a thing happens, though we know it 
must happen. Thus we groan under life, and bewail 
those who are relieved from it. Every object that 
returns to our imagination raises different passions, 
according ito the circumstance of their departure. 
Who can have lived in an army, and in a serious hour 
reflect upon the many gay and agreeable men that 
might long have flourished in the arts of peace, and not 
join with the imprecations of the fatherless and widow 
on the tyrant to whose ambition they fell sacrifices ? 
But gallant men, who are cut off by the sword, 
move rather our veneration than our pity; and we 
gather relief enough from their own contempt of 
death, to make it no evil, which was approached 
with so much cheerfulness, and attended with so much 
honour. But when we turn our thoughts from the 

great 



RECOLLECTIONS OF CHILDHOOD. 49 

great parts of life on such occasions, and instead of 
lamenting those who stood ready to give death to 
those from whom they had the fortune to receive it ; 
I say, when we let our thoughts wander from such 
noble objects, and consider the havoc which is made 
among the tender and the innocent, pity enters with 
an unmixed softness, and possesses all our souls at 
once. 

Here (were there words to express such sentiments 
with proper tenderness) I should record the beauty, 
innocence, and untimely death, of the first object my 
ej-es ever beheld with love. The beauteous virgin I 
How ignorantly did she charm, how carelessly excel ? 
Oh Death, thou hast right to the bold, to the ambi- 
tious, to the high, and to the haughty ; but why this 
cruelty to the humble, to the meek, to the undiscern- 
ing, to the thoughtless ? Nor age, nor business, nor 
distress, can erase the dear image from my imagina- 
tion. In the same week, I saw her dressed for a ball, 
and in a shroud. How ill did the habit of Death 
become the pretty trifler ? I still behold the smiling 

earth A large train of disasters were coming on to 

my memory, when my servant knocked at my closet- 
door, and interrupted me with a letter, attended with 
a hamper of wine, of the same sort with that which 



$o RECOLLECTIONS OF CHILDHOOD. 

is to be put to sale, on Thursday next, at Garraway's 
Coffee-house. Upon the receipt of it, I sent for three 
of my friends. We are so intimate, that we can be 
company in whatever state of mind we meet, and can 
entertain each other without expecting always to re- 
joice. The wine we found to be generous and warm- 
ing, but with such an heat as moved us rather to be 
cheerful than frolicsome. It revived the spirits, with- 
out firing the blood. We commended it until two of 
the clock this morning; and having to-day met a 
little before dinner, we found, that though we drank 
two bottles a man, we had much more reason to 
recollect than forget what had passed the night before. 

[June 6, 1710.] 



ADVENTURES 



Tatler] N^ 8 [Addison 

ADVENTURES OF A SHILLING. 



Per varios casus, per tot discrimina reruni, 
Tendimus 

— ViRG. 



I WAS last night visited by a friend of mine who 
has an inexhaustible fund of discourse, and 
never fails to entertain his company with a variety of 
thoughts and hints that are altogether new and un- 
common. Whether it were in complaisance to my 
way of living, or his real opinion, he advanced the 
following paradox, That it required much greater 
talents to fill up and become a retired life, than a life 
of business. Upon this occasion he rallied very 
agreeably the busy men of the age, who only valued 
themselves for being in motion, and passing through 
a series of trifling and insignificant actions. In the 
heat of his discourse, seeing a piece of money lying 



52 ADVENTURES OF A SHILLING. 

on my table—' I defy,' says he, ' any of these active 

* persons to produce half the adventures that this 
' twelvepenny-piece has been engaged in, were it 
'possible for him to give us an account of his 
' hfe.' 

My friend's talk made so odd an impression upon 
my mind, that soon after I was a-bed I fell insensibly 
into a most unaccountable reverie, that had neither 
moral nor design in it, and cannot be so properly 
called a dream as a delirium, 

Methought that the Shilling that lay upon the table 
reared itself upon its edge, and turning the face to- 
wards me, opened its mouth, and in a soft silver 
sound gave me the following account of his life and 
adventures. 

* I was born,' says he, ' on the side of a mountain, 
' near a little village of Peru, and made a voyage to 

* England in an ingot, under the convoy of Sir 

* Francis Drake. I was, soon after my arrival, taken 

* out of my Indian habit, refined, naturalized, and put 
' into the British mode, with the face of Queen Eliza- 

* beth on one side, and the arms of the country on the 

* other. Being thus equipped, I found in me a won- 

* derful inclination to ramble, and visit all parts of the 

* newworld into which I was brought. The people very 

' much 



ADVENTURES OF A SHILLING. 53 

* much favoured my natural disposition, and shifted 

* me so fast from hand to hand, that before I was five 

* years old, I had travelled into almost every corner of 
' the nation. But in the beginning of my sixth year, 

* to my unspeakable grief, I fell into the hands of a 

* miserable old fellow, who clapped me into an iron 
' chest, where I found five hundred more of my own 

* quality, who lay under the same confinement. The 

* only relief we had, was to be taken out and counted 

* over in the fresh air every morning and evening. 

* After an imprisonment of several years, we heard 

* somebody knocking at our chest, and breaking it 
' open with an hammer. This we found was the old 
' man's heir, who, as his father lay a-dying, was so 
' good as to come to our release : he separated us that 

* very day. What was the fate of my companions I 

* know not : as for myself, I was sent to the apothe- 

* cary's shop for a pint of sack. The apothecary gave 

* me to an herb-woman, the herb-woman to a butcher, 

* the butcher to a brewer, and the brewer to his wife, 

* who made a present of me to a Non-conformist 
' preacher. After this manner I made my way 
' merrily through the world ; for, as 1 told you 

* before, we Shillings love nothing so much as 

* travelling. I sometimes fetched in a shoulder 

'of 



S4 



ADVENTURES OF A SHILLING. 



' of mutton, sometimes a play-book, and often had 
' the satisfaction to treat a Templar at a twelve-penny 
' ordinary, or carry him with three friends to West- 

* minster Hall. 

* In the midst of this pleasant progress, which I 

* made from place to place, I was arrested by a super- 
' stitious old woman, who shut me up in a greasy 

* purse, in pursuance of a foolish saying, that while 

* she kept a Queen Elizabeth's Shilling about her, 
' she should never be without money. I continued 
' here a close prisoner for many months, until at last 
' I was exchanged for eight-and-forty farthings. 

* I thus rambled from pocket to pocket until the 
' beginning of the civil wars, when, to my shame be 
' it spoken, I was emploj^ed in raising soldiers against 

* the king ; for being of a very tempting breadth, a 

* Serjeant made use of me to inveigle country fellows, 

* and list them in the service of the parliament, 

* As soon as he had made one man sure, his way 

* was to oblige him to take a Shilling of a more 
' homely figure, and then practise the same trick 

* upon another. Thus I continued doing great mis- 

* chief to the Crown, until my officer chancing one 

* morning to walk abroad earlier than ordinary, sacri- 

* ficed me to his pleasures, and made use of me to 

' seduce 



ADVENTURES OF A STIILLIKG. 55 

* seduce a milk-maid. This wench bent me, and 

* gave me to her sweetheart applying more properly 

* than she intended the usual form of—" To my love 
' ** and from my love." This ungenerous gallant 

* marrying her within few days after, pawned me 
' for a dram of brandy ; and drinking me out next 
' day, I was beaten flat with an hammer, and again 

* set a-running. 

* After many adventures, which it would be tedious 
' to relate, I was sent to a young spendthrift, in com- 

* pany with the will of his deceased father. The 

* young fellow, who, I found, was very extravagant, 

* gave great demonstrations of joy at the receiving 
' the will ; but opening it, he found himself dis- 
' inherited, and cut oft from the possession of a fair 

* estate by virtue of my being made a present to him. 

* This put him into such a passion, that after having 

* taken me in his hand, and cursed me, he squirred 

* me away from him as far as he could fling me. I 

* chanced to light in an unfrequented place under a 

* dead wall, where I lay undiscovered and useless, 

* during the, usurpation of Oliver Cromwell. 

* About a year after the king's return, a poor cava- 

* lier that was walking there about dinner-time, fortu- 

* nately cast his e^'e upon me, and, to the great joy 



56 ADVENTURES OF A SHILLING. 

' of us both, carried me to a cook's shop, where he 
' dined upon me, and drank the king's health. When 
' I came again into the world, I found that I had been 
' happier in my retirement than I thought, having 

* probably by that means escaped wearing a mon- 
' strous pair of breeches. 

* Being now of great credit and antiquity, I was 
' rather looked upon as a medal than an ordinary 
' coin ; for which reason a gamester laid hold of me, 
' and converted me to a counter, having got together 
' some dozens of us for that use. We led a melan- 
' choly life in his possession, being busy at those 

* hours wherein current coin is at rest, and partaking 
' the fate of our master ; being in a few moments 
' valued at a crown, a pound, or a sixpence, according 
' to the situation in which the fortune of the cards 
' placed us. I had at length the good luck to see my 
' master break, by which means I was again sent 

* abroad under my primitive denomination of a Shil- 
' hng. 

' I shall pass over many other accidents of less 

* moment, and hasten to that fatal catastrophe when 

* I fell into the hands of an artist, who conveyed me 

* under ground, and with an unmerciful pair of 

* shears, cut off my titles, clipped my brims, re- 

' trenched 



ADVENTURES OF A SHILLING. $7 

'trenched my shape, rubbed me to my inmost ring ; 
'and in short, so spoiled and pillaged me, that he 

* did not leave me worth a groat. You may think 
'what a confusion I was in to see myself thus 
'curtailed and disfigured. I should have been 
'ashamed to have shewn my head, had not all my 
' old acquaintance been reduced to the same shameful 

* figure, excepting some few that were punched 
' through the belly. In the midst of this general 
' calamity, when ever}"- body thought our misfortune 
' irretrievable, and our case desperate, we were thrown 

* into the furnace together, and (as it often happens 
' with cities rising out of a fire) appeared with greater 
' beauty and lustre than we could ever boast of before. 
' What has happened to me since this change of sex 

* which you now see, I shall take some other oppor- 
' tunity to relate. In the mean time I shall only 
' repeat two adventures ; as being very extraordinary, 

* and neither of them having ever happened to me 
' above once in my life. The first was, my being in 

* a poet's pocket, who was so taken with the brightness 
' and novelty of my appearance, that it gave occasion 
' to the finest burlesque poem in the British language, 

* intituled from me — " The Splendid Shilling." The 

* second adventure, which I must not omit, happened 



S8 ADVENTURES OF A SHILLING. 

* to me in the year one thousand seven hundred and 

* three, when I was given away in charity to a blind 

* man ; but indeed this was by a mistake, the person 

* who gave me having heedlessly thrown me into the 

* hat among a pennyworth of farthings,* 

[Nov. II, 1710.] 



FROZEN 



Tatler] N° 9 [Addison 

FROZEN VOICES. 



Splendide mcndax 

— HOR. 



THERE are no books which I more delight in 
than in Travels, especially those that describe 
remote countries, and give the writer an opportunity 
of shewing his parts without incurring any danger of 
being examined or contradicted. Among all the 
authors of this kind, our renowned countryman. Sir 
John Mandeville, has distinguished himself by the 
copiousness of his invention, and greatness of his 
genius. The second to Sir John I take to have been 
Ferdinand Mendez Pinto, a person of infinite adven- 
ture, and unbounded imagination. One reads the 
voyages of these two great wits with as much astonish- 
ment as the Travels of Ulysses in Homer, or of the 

Red-Cross 



6o FROZEN VOICES. 

Red-Cross Knight in Spenser. All is enchanted 
ground and fairy land. 

I have got into my hand, by great chance, several 
manuscripts of these two eminent authors, which are 
filled with greater wonders than any of those they 
have communicated to the public ; and indeed, were 
they not so well attested, would appear altogether 
improbable. I am apt to think the ingenious authors 
did not publish them with the rest of their works, 
lest they should pass for fictions and fables : a caution 
not unnecessary, when the reputation of their veracity 
was not yet established in the world. But as this 
reason has now no further weight, I shall make the 
public a present of these curious pieces at such times 
as I shall find myself unprovided with other subjects. 

The present paper I intend to fill with an extract of 
Sir John's Journal, in which that learned and worthy 
knight gives an account of the freezing and thawing of 
several short speeches, which he made in the territories 
of Nova Zembla. I need not inform my reader, that the 
author of Hudibras alludes to this strange quality in 
that cold climate, when, speaking of abstracted notions 
clothed in a visible shape, he adds that apt simile — 

Like words congeal'd in norlhern air. 

Not 



FROZEN VOICES. 6i 

Not to keep my reader any longer in suspense, the 
relation, put into modern language, is as follows : 
* We were separated by a storm in the latitude of 

* 73°, insomuch that only the ship which I was in, with 

* a Dutch and French vessel, got safe into a creek of 

* Nova Zembla. We landed, in order to refit our 
' vessels, and store ourselves with provisions. The 

* crew of each vessel made themselves a cabin of turf 

* and wood, at some distance from each other, to 

* fence themselves against the inclemencies of the 

* weather, which was severe beyond imagination. 

* We soon observed, that in talking to one another 
' we lost several of our words, and could not hear 

* one another at above two yards' distance, and that 
' too when we sat very near the fire. After much 

* perplexity, I found that our words froze in the air, 
' before they could reach the ears of the persons to 

* whom they were spoken. I was soon confirmed in 
' the conjecture, when, upon the increase of the cold, 
' the whole company grew dumb, or rather deaf; for 
' every man was sensible, as we afterwards found, 
' that he spoke as well as ever ; but the sounds no 
' sooner took air, than they were condensed and lost. 
' It was now a miserable spectacle to see us nodding 

* and gaping at one another, every man talking, and 



(>2 FROZEN VOICES. 

* no man heard. One might observe a seaman, that 
' could hail a ship at a league's distance, beckoning 
' with his hands, straining his lungs, and tearing his 

* throat ; but all in vain. 

JVec vox, ftec verba, seqtiuntur. 

*We continued here three weeks in this dismal 

* plight. At length, upon a turn of wind, the air 

* about us began to thaw. Our cabin was immedi- 
' ately filled with a dry clattering sound, which I 

* afterwards found to be the crackling of consonants 
' that broke above our heads, and were often mixed 
' with a gentle hissing, which I imputed to the letter S, 

* that occurs so frequently in the English tongue. I 

* soon after felt a breeze of whispers rushing by my ear; 

* for those being of a soft and gentle substance, imme- 
' diately liquefied in the warm wind that blew across 
' our cabin. These were soon followed by syllables 
' and short words, and at length by entire sentences, 

* that melted sooner or later as they were more or less 
' congealed ; so that we now heard every thing that 
' had been spoken during the whole three weeks that 

* we had been silent, if I may use that expression. 

* It was now very early in the morning, and yet to 

* my surprise, I heard somebody say—" Sir John, it 



FROZEN VOICES. 63 

* ** is midnight, and time for the ship's crew to go to 

* ** bed," This I knew to be the pilot's voice, and 
' upon recollecting myself, I concluded that he had 
' spoken these words to me some days before, though 
' I could not hear them until the present thaw. 

* My reader will easily imagine how the whole crew 

* was amazed to hear every man talking, and see no 

* man open his mouth. In the midst of this great 

* surprise we were all in, we heard a volley of oaths 

* and curses, lasting for a long while, and uttered 

* in a very hoarse voice, which I knew belonged to 

* the boatswain, who was a very choleric fellow, and 
' had taken his opportunity of cursing and swearing at 

* me when he thought I could not hear him ; for I 
' had several times given him the strappado on that 

* account, as I did not fail to repeat it for these his 

* pious soliloquies, when I got him on shipboard. 

* I must not omit the names of several beauties in 
' Wapping, which were heard every now and then, 

* in the midst of a long sigh that accompanied them ; 
' as " Dear Kate ! " " Pretty Mrs. Peggy ! " " When 
'"shall I see my Sue again?" This betrayed 

* several amours which had been concealed until 

* that time, and furnished us with a great deal of 

* mirth in our return to England. 

' When 



64 FROZEN VOICES. 

' When this confusion of voices was pretty well 
' over, though I was afraid to offer at speaking, as 
' fearing I should not be heard, I proposed a visit to 
' the Dutch cabin, which lay about a mile further up 
' into the country. My crew were extremely rejoiced 
' to find they had again recovered their hearing ; 
' though every man uttered his voice with the same 

* apprehensions that I had done — 

£i timide verba intennissa retentat. 

' At about half-a-mile's distance from our cabin, 

* we heard the groanings of a bear, which at first 

* startled us ; but upon inquiry, we were informed by 

* some of our company that he was dead, and now lay 
' in salt, having been killed upon that very spot about 
' a fortnight before, in the time of the frost. Not far 

* from the same place, we were likewise entertained 
' with some posthumous snarls and barkings of a 

* fox. 

* We at length arrived at the little Dutch settle- 
' ment ; and upon entering the room, found it filled 
' with sighs that smelt of brandy, and several other 
' unsavoury sounds, that were altogether inarticulate. 
' My valet, who was an Irishman, fell into so great a 
' rage at what he heard, that he drew his sword ; 

' but 



FROZEN VOICES. 6$ 

* but not knowing where to lay the blame, he put it 

* up again. We were stunned with these confused 
' noises, but did not hear a single word until about 

* half-an-hour after ; which I ascribed to the harsh 
' and obdurate sounds of that language, which wanted 

* more time than ours to melt and become audible. 

* After having here met with a very hearty wel- 

* come, w^e went to the cabin of the French, who, to 

* make amends for their three w^eeks' silence, were 

* talking and disputing with greater rapidity and con- 
' fusion than ever I heard in an assembly even of that 

* nation. Their language, as I found, upon the first 

* giving of the weather, fell asunder and dissolved. I 

* was here convinced of an error, into which I had 

* before fallen ; for I fancied that, for the freezing of 

* the sound, it was necessary for it to be wrapped up 

* and, as it were, preserved in breath : but I found 

* my mistake, when I heard the sound of a kit playing 

* a minuet over our heads. I asked the occasion of 

* it ; upon which one of the company told me, it 
' would play there above a week longer, if the thaw 
' continued ; " for," says he, " finding ourselves 

* " bereft of speech, we prevailed upon one of the 

* " company, who had this musical instrument about 

* *' him, to play to us from morning to night ; all 

' " which 



66 FROZEN VOICES. 

' " which time we employed in dancing, in order to 
* " dissipate our chagrin, et tuer le temps." ' 

Here Sir John gives very good philosophical reasons 
why the kit could not be heard during the frost ; but 
as they are something prolix, I pass them over in 
silence, and shall only observe, that the honourable 
author seems by his quotations to have been well 
versed in the ancient poets, which perhaps raised 
his fancy above the ordinary pitch of historians, and 
very much contributed to the embellishment of his 
writings. 

[Nov. 23, 1710.] 



STAGE 



Spectator] -N 10 [Addison 

STAGE LIONS. 



Die tnihi, si fueris tu leo, qiialis eris? 
— Mart. 



THERE is nothing that of late years has afforded 
matter of greater amusement to the town than 
Signior Nicolini's combat with a Lion in the Hay- 
market, which has been very often exhibited to the 
general satisfaction of most of the nobility and gentry 
in the kingdom of Great Britain. Upon the first 
rumour of this intended combat, it was confidently 
affirmed, and is still believed by many in both gal- 
leries, that there would be a tame lion sent from the 
Tower every opera night, in order to be killed by 
Hydaspes. This report, though altogether ground- 
less, so universally prevailed in the upper regions of 
the playhouse, that some of the most refined politi- 
cians in those parts of the audience gave it out in 

whisper, 



68 STAGE LIONS. 

whisper, that the Lion was a cousin-german of the 
Tiger who made his appearance in King WilHam's 
days, and that the stage would be supplied with lions 
at the public expense during the whole session. 
Many likewise were the conjectures of the treatment 
which this Lion was to meet with from the hands 
of Signior Nicolini : some supposed that he was to 
subdue him in recitativo, as Orpheus used to serve 
the wild beasts in his time, and afterwards to knock 
him on the head ; some fancied that the Lion would 
not pretend to lay his paws upon the hero, by reason 
of the received opinion, that a Lion will not hurt a 
Virgin. Several, who pretended to have seen the 
opera in Italy, had informed their friends, that the 
Lion was to act a part in High-Dutch, and roar twice 
or thrice to a thorough-bass, before he fell at the feet 
of Hydaspes. To clear up a matter that was so 
variously reported, I have made it my business to 
examine whether this pretended Lion is really the 
savage he appears to be, or only a counterfeit. 

But before I communicate my discoveries, I must 
acquaint the reader, that upon my walking behind 
the scenes last winter, as I was thinking on some- 
thing else, I accidentally justlcd against a monstrous 
animal that extremely startled me, and, upon my 

nearer 



STAGE LIONS. 69 

nearer survey of it, appeared to be a Lion-Rampant. 
The Lion, seeing me very much surprised, told me, 
in a gentle voice, that I might come by him if I 
pleased — ' For,' says he, * I do not intend to hurt any- 
' body.' I thanked him very kindl}'', and passed by 
him ; and in a little time after saw him leap upon 
the stage, and act his part with very great applause. 
It has been observed by several, that the Lion has 
changed his manner of acting twice or thrice since 
his first appearance; which will not seem strange, 
when I acquaint my reader that the Lion has been 
changed upon the audience three several times. The 
first Lion was a Candle-snuffer, who being a fellow 
of a testy, choleric temper, overdid his part, and 
would not suffer himself to be killed so easily as 
he ought to have done ; besides, it was observed of 
him, that he grew more surly every time he came 
out of the Lion; and having dropt some words in 
ordinary conversation, as if he had not fought his 
best, and that he suffered himself to be thrown upon 
his back in the scufHe, and that he would wrestle with 
Mr. Nicolini for what he pleased, out of his Lion's 
skin, it was thought proper to discard him ; and it is 
verily believed, to this day, that had he been brought 
upon the stage another time, he would certainly have 

done 



70 STAGE LIONS. 

done mischief. Besides, it v/as objected against the 
first Lion, that he reared himself so high upon his 
hinder paws, and walked in so erect a posture, that he 
looked more like an old Man than a Lion. 

The second Lion was a Tailor by trade, who be- 
longed to the playhouse, and had the character of 
a mild and peaceable man in his profession. If the 
former was too furious, this was too sheepish, for his 
part ; insomuch that, after a short modest walk upon 
the stage, he would fall at the first touch of Hydaspes, 
without grappling with him, and giving him an op- 
portunity of shewing his variety of Italian trips : it is 
said indeed, that he once gave him a rip in his flesh- 
coloured doublet ; but this was only to make work for 
himself, in his private character of a Tailor. I must 
not omit that it was this second Lion who treated me 
with so much humanity behind the scenes. 

The acting Lion at present is, as I am informed, a 
Country Gentleman, who does it for his diversion, 
but desires his name may be concealed. He says 
very handsomely in his own excuse, that he does not 
act for gain ; that he indulges an innocent pleasure 
in it ; and that it is better to pass away an evening 
in this manner, than in gaming and drinking ; but at 
the same time says, with a very agreeable raillery upon 

himself, 



STAGE LIONS. 



71 



himself, that if his name should be known, the ill-na- 
tured world might call him the Ass in the Lion's skin. 
This gentleman's temper is made of such a happy mix- 
ture of the mild and the choleric, that he out-does both 
his predecessors, and has drawn together greater audi- 
ences than have been known in the memory of man. 

I must not conclude my narrative, without taking 
notice of a groundless report that has been raised, to 
a gentleman's disadvantage, of whom I must declare 
myself an admirer ; namely, that Signior Nicolini 
and the Lion have been seen sitting peaceably by one 
another, and smoking a pipe together, behind the 
scenes; by which their common enemies would in- 
sinuate, it is but a sham combat which they represent 
upon the stage ; but upon enquiry I find, that if any 
such correspondence has passed between them, it was 
not till the combat was over, when the Lion was to be 
looked upon as dead, according to the received rules 
of the Drama. Besides, this is what is practised 
every day in Westminster Hall, where nothing is 
more usual than to see a couple of lawyers, who have 
been tearing each other to pieces in the court, em- 
bracing one another as soon as they are out of it. 

I would not be thought, in any part of this rela- 
tion, to reflect upon Signior Nicolini, who in acting 

this 



'J2 STAGE LIONS. 

this part only complies with the wretched taste of his 
audience ; he knows very well, that the Lion has 
many more admirers than himself ; as they say of the 
famous equestrian statue on the Pont-Neuf at Paris, 
that more people go to see the horse, than the king 
who sits upon it. On the contrary, it gives me a 
just indignation to see a person whose action gives 
new majesty to kings, resolution to heroes, and soft- 
ness to lovers, thus sinking from the greatness of his 
behaviour, and degraded into the character of the 
London 'Prentice. I have often wished, that our 
tragedians would copy after this great master in 
action. Could they make the same use of their arms 
and legs, and inform their faces with as significant 
looks and passions, how glorious would an English 
tragedy appear with that action, which is capable of 
giving a dignity to the forced thoughts, cold conceits, 
and unnatural expressions of an Italian opera 1 In 
the mean time, I have related this combat of the 
Lion, to shew what are at present the reigning enter- 
tainments of the politer part of Great Britain. 

Audiences have often been reproached by writers 
for the coarseness of their taste; but our present 
grievance does not seem to be the want of a good 
taste, but of common sense. 

[March 15,1711.] MEDITA TIONS 



Spectator] N*-* II [Addisc 

MEDITATIONS IN WESTMINSTER 
ABBEY. 



Pallida mors aquo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas 

Regumqtie turres. O heate Sesti, 
Vitce siimma hrevis spem nos vetat inchoare longain. 

Jam te premet nox, fabulceque manes, 
Et domus exilis Plutonia — Hor. 



WHEN I am in a serious humour, I very often 
walk by myself in Westminster Abbey; 
where the gloominess of the place, and the use to which 
it is applied, with the solemnity of the building, and 
the condition of the people who lie in it, are apt to fill 
the mind with a kind of melancholy, or rather thought- 
fulness, that is not disagreeable. I yesterday passed a 
whole afternoon in the churchyard, the cloisters, and 
the church, amusing myself with the tombstones and 
inscriptions that I met with in those several regions 

of 



74 MEDITATIONS IN 

of the dead, Most of them recorded nothing else of 
the buried person, but that he was born upon one 
day, and died upon another : the whole history of 
his life being comprehended in those two circum- 
stances, that are common to all mankind. I could 
not but look upon these registers of existence, 
whether of brass or marble, as a kind of satire upon 
the departed persons ; who had left no other memorial 
of them, but that they were born and that they died. 
They put me in mind of several persons mentioned 
in the battles of heroic poems, who have sounding 
names given them, for no other reason but that they 
may be killed, and are celebrated for nothing but 
being knocked on the head. 

TKavKov re, MeSovra re, ©epaiXoxov re. 

Glaticutngue, Medontaque, Thersilochumque. 

The life of these men is finely described in Holy 
Writ by 'the path of an arrow,' which is imme^ 
diately closed up and lost. 

Upon my going into the church, I entertained my- 
self with the digging of a grave ; and saw in every 
shovel-full of it that was thrown up, the fragment of 
a bone or skull intermixed with a kind of fresh 

mouldering 



WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 7$ 

mouldering earth that some time or other had a place 
in the composition of a human body. Upon this I 
began to consider with myself, what innumerable 
multitudes of people lay confused together under the 
pavement of that ancient cathedral; how men and 
women, friends and enemies, priests and soldiers, 
monks and prebendaries, were crumbled amongst one 
another, and blended together in the same common 
mass; how beauty, strength, and youth, with old- 
age, weakness, and deformity, lay undistinguished in 
the same promiscuous heap of matter. 

After having thus surveyed this great magazine 
of mortality, as it were in the lump, I examined it 
more particularly by the accounts which I found on 
several of the monuments which are raised in every 
quarter of that ancient fabric. Some of them were 
covered with such extravagant epitaphs, that, if it 
were possible for the dead person to be acquainted 
with them, he would blush at the praises which 
his friends have bestowed upon him. There are 
others so excessively modest, that they deliver the 
character of the person departed in Greek or Hebrew, 
and by that means are not understood once in a 
twelvemonth. In the poetical quarter, I found there 
were poets who had no monuments, and monuments 

which 



76 MEDITATIONS IN 

which had no poets. I observed indeed that the 
present war had filled the church with many of these 
uninhabited monuments, which had been erected to 
the memory of persons whose bodies were perhaps 
buried in the plains of Blenheim, or in the bosom of 
the ocean. 

I could not but be very much delighted with 
several modern epitaphs, which are written with 
great elegance of expression and justness of thought, 
and therefore do honour to the living as well as the 
dead. As a foreigner is very apt to conceive an 
idea of the ignorance or politeness of a nation from 
the turn of their public monuments and inscrip- 
tions, they should be submitted to the perusal of 
men of learning and genius before they are put in 
execution. Sir Cloudesly Shovel's monument has 
very often given me great offence ; instead of the 
brave rough English admiral, which was the dis- 
tinguishing character of that plain gallant man, he is 
represented on his tomb by the figure of a beau, 
dressed in a long periwig, and reposing himself upon 
velvet cushions under a canopy of state. The inscrip- 
tion is answerable to the monument; for instead of 
celebrating the many remarkable actions he had per- 
formed in the service of his country, it acquaints us 

only 



JFESTMINSTER ABBEY. 



77 



only with the manner of his death, in which it was 
impossible for him to reap any honour. The Dutch, 
whom we are apt to despise for want of genius, shew 
an infinitely greater taste of antiquity and politeness 
in their buildings and works of this nature, than 
what we meet with in those of our own country. 
The monuments of their admirals, which have been 
erected at the public expense, represent them like 
themselves ; and are adorned with rostral crowns and 
naval ornaments, with beautiful festoons of sea-weed, 
shells, and coral. 

But to return to our subject. I have left the re- 
pository of our English kings for the contemplation 
of another day, when I shall find my mind disposed 
for so serious an amusement. I know that entertain- 
ments of this nature are apt to raise dark and dismal 
thoughts in timorous minds and gloomy imagina- 
tions; but for my own part, though I am always 
serious, I do not know what it is to be melancholy ; 
and can, therefore, take a view of nature, in her deep 
and solemn scenes, with the same pleasure as in her 
most gay and delightful ones. By this means I can 
improve myself with those objects, which others con- 
sider with terror. When I look upon the tombs of 
the great, every emotion of envy dies in me ; when I 

read 



78 MEDITATIONS. 

read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate 
desire goes out ; when I meet with the grief of 
parent upon a tombstone, my heart melts with com- 
passion ; when I see the tomb of the parents them- 
selves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those 
whom we must quickly follow : when I see kings 
lying by those who deposed them, when I consider 
rival wits placed side by side, or the holy men that 
divided the world with their contests and disputes, I 
teflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little 
competitions, factions, and debates of mankind. 
When I read the several dates of the tombs, of some 
that died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, 
I consider that great day when we shall all of us be 
contemporaries, and make our appearance together. 

[March 30, 1711.] 



THE 



Spectator] N 12, [Addison 

THE EXERCISE OF THE FAN. 



Lusiis aninio dehent altquando dart. 

Ad cogitandum melior ut redeat sihi. 

— Ph^dr, 



I DO not know whether to call the following letter 
a satire upon coquettes, or a representation of 
their several fantastical accomplishments, or what 
other title to give it ; but as it is I shall communicate 
it to the public. It will sufficiently explain its own 
intentions, so that I shall give it my reader at length, 
without either preface or postscript. 

MR. SPECTATOR, 

"VyOMEN are armed with fans as men with swords, 

and sometimes do more execution with them. 

To the end therefore that ladies may be entire mistresses 

of the weapon which they bear, I have erected an 

academy 



8o THE EXERCISE OF THE FAN. 

academy for the training up of young women in the 
' Exercise of the Fan,' according to the most fashion- 
able airs and motions that are now practised at court. 
The ladies who ' carry ' fans under me are drawn up 
twice a day in my great hall, where they are in- 
structed in the use of their arms, and exercised by the 
following words of command : 

Handle your fans, 
Unfurl your fans, 
Discharge your fans. 
Ground your fans, 
Recover your fans, 
Flutter your fans. 

By the right observation of these few plain words of 
command, a woman of a tolerable genius, who will 
apply herself diligently to her exercise for the space 
of but one half-year, shall be able to give her fan all 
the graces that can possibly enter into that little 
modish machine. 

But to the end that my readers may form to them- 
selves a right notion of this exercise, I beg leave to 
explain it to them in all its parts. When my female 
regiment is drawn up in array, with every one her 
weapon in her hand, upon my giving the word to 
* handle their fan,' each of them shakes her fan at me 
with a smile, then gives her right-hand woman a tap 

upon 



THE EXERCISE OF THE FAN. 8i 

upon the shoulder, then presses her lips with the ex- 
tremity of her fan, then lets her arms fall in an easy- 
motion, and stands in a readiness to receive the next 
word of command. All this is done with a close fan, 
and is generally learned in the first week. 

The next motion is that of ' unfurling the fan,' in 
which are comprehended several little flirts and vibra- 
tions, as also gradual and deliberate openings, with 
many voluntary fallings asunder in the fan -itself, that 
are seldom learned under a month's practice. This 
part of the exercise pleases the spectators more than 
any other, as it discovers on a sudden an infinite 
number of cupids, garlands, altars, birds, beasts, rain- 
bows, and the like agreeable figures, that display 
themselves to viev/, whilst every one in the regiment 
holds a picture in her hand. 

Upon my giving the word to ' discharge their fans,' 
they give one general crack that may be heard at a 
considerable distance w^hen the wind sits fair. This 
is one of the most difficult parts of the exercise ; but 
I have several ladies with me, who at their first en- 
trance could not give a pop loud enough to be heard 
at the further end of a room, who can now ' discharge 
* a fan ' in such a manner, that it shall make a report 
like a pocket-pistol. I have likewise taken care (in 

order 
8 



82 THE EXERCISE OF THE FAN. 

order to hinder young women from letting off their 
fans in wrong places or unsuitable occasions), to shew 
upon what subject the crack of a fan may come in 
properly : I have likewise invented a fan with which 
a girl of sixteen, by the help of a little wind which is 
inclosed about one of the largest sticks, can make as 
loud a crack as a woman of fifty with an ordinary 
fan. 

When the fans are thus ' discharged,' the word of 
command in course is to ' ground their fans.' This 
teaches a lady to quit her fan gracefully when she 
throws it aside in order to take up a pack of cards, 
adjust a curl of hair, replace a falling pin, or apply 
herself to any other matter of importance. This part 
of the exercise, as it only consists in tossing a fan 
with an air upon a long table (which stands by for that 
purpose), may be learned in two days' time as well as 
in a twelvemonth. 

When my female regiment is thus disarmed, I 
generally let them walk about the room for some 
time ; when on a sudden (like ladies that look upon 
their watches after a long visit), they all of them 
hasten to their arms, catch them up in a hurry, and 
place themselves in their proper stations upon my 
calling out — ' Recover your fans 1 ' This part of the 

exercise 



THE EXERCISE OF THE FAN. 83 

exercise is not dtfEcult, provided a woman applies her 
thoughts to it. 

The ' fluttering of the fan ' is the last and indeed 
the master-piece of the whole exercise ; but if a lady 
does not mis-spend her time, she may make herself 
mistress of it in three months. I generally lay aside 
the dog-days and the hot time of the summer for the 
teaching this part of the ' exercise ' ; for as soon as ever 
I pronounce — ' Flutter your fans,' the place is filled 
with so many zephyrs and gentle breezes as are very 
refreshing in that season of the year, though they 
might be dangerous to ladies of a tender constitution 
in any other. 

There is an infinite variety of motions to be made 
use of in the ' flutter of a fan : ' there is the angry 
flutter, the modest flutter, the timorous flutter, the 
confused flutter, the merry flutter, and the amorous 
flutter. Not to be tedious, there is scarce any emo- 
tion in the mind which does not produce a suitable 
agitation in the fan ; insomuch, that if I only see the 
fan of a disciplined lady, I know very well whether 
she laughs, frowns, or blushes. I have seen a fan so 
very angry, that it would have been dangerous for the 
absent lover who provoked it to have come within 
the wind of it ; and at other times so very languish- 



84 THE EXERCISE OF THE FAN. 

ing, that I have been glad for the lady's sake the lover 
was at a sufficient distance from it. I need not add, 
that a fan is either a prude or coquette, according to 
the nature of the person who bears it. To conclude 
my letter, I must acquaint you that I have from my 
own observations compiled a little treatise for the use 
of my scholars, entitled * The Passions of the Fan ; ' 
which I will communicate to you, if you think it 
may be of use to the public. I shall have a general 
review on Thursday next ; to which you shall be very 
welcome if you will honour it with your presence. 

I am, &c. 

P.S. I teach young gentlemen the whole art of 
gallanting a fan. 

N.B. I have several little plain fans made for this 
use, to avoid expense. 

[June 2-j, 1711.] 



IFILL 



Spectator] N 1 3 [Addison 

WILL WIMBLE. 



Gratis anhelans, multa agendo nihil agetis. 

— PiLEDR, 



AS I was yesterday morning walking with Sir 
Roger before his house, a country-fellow 
brought him a huge fish, which, he told him, Mr. 
William Wimble had caught that very morning ; and 
that he presented it, with his service to him, and 
intended to come and dine with him. At the same 
time he delivered a letter which my friend read to me 
as soon as the messenger left him. 

SIR ROGER, 

T DESIRE you to accept of a jack, which is the best 

I have caught this season. I intend to come and 

stay with you a week, and see how the perch bite in 

the Black River. I observed with some concern, the 

last 



86 WILL WIMBLE. 

last time I saw you upon the bowling-green, that 
your whip wanted a lash to it ; I will bring half-a- 
dozen with me that I twisted last week, which I hope 
will serve you all the time you are in the country. I 
have not been out of the saddle for six days last past, 
having been at Eton with Sir John's eldest son. He 
takes to his learning hugely. — I am, sir, your humble 
serv'ant. Will Wimble. 

This extraordinary' letter, and the message that 
accompanied it, made me very curious to know the 
character and quality of the gentleman who sent 
them, which I found to be as follows. Will Wimble 
is younger brother to a baronet, and descended of the 
ancient family of the Wimbles. He is now between 
forty and fifty; but being bred to no business and 
born to no estate, he generally lives with his elder 
brother as superintendent of his game. He hunts a 
pack of dogs better than any man in the country, and 
is very famous for finding out a hare. He is ex- 
tremely well versed in all the little handicrafts of an 
idle man. He makes a May-fly to a miracle ; and 
furnishes the whole country with angle-rods. As he 
is a good-natured officious fellow, and very much 
esteemed upon account of his family, he is a welcome 

guest 



WILL WIMBLE. 87 

guest at every house, and keeps up a good corre- 
spondence among all the gentlemen about him. He 
carries a tulip-root in his pocket from one to another, 
or exchanges a puppy between a couple of friends that 
live perhaps in the opposite sides of the county. Will 
is a particular favourite of all the young heirs, whom 
he frequently obliges with a net that he has weaved 
or a setting-dog that he has ' made ' himself. He now 
and then presents a pair of garters of his own knitting 
to their mothers or sisters ; and raises a great deal of 
mirth among them, by inquiring as often as he meets 
them, ' How they wear ? ' These gentleman-like 
manufactures and obliging little humours make Will 
the darling of the country. 

Sir Roger was proceeding in the character of him, 
when he saw him make up to us with two or three 
hazel-twigs in his hand that he had cut in Sir Roger's 
woods, as he came through them, in his way to the 
house. I was very much pleased to observe on one 
side the hearty and sincere welcome with which Sir 
Roger received him, and on the other, the secret joy 
which his guest discovered at sight of the good old 
knight. After the first salutes were over. Will de- 
sired Sir Roger to lend him one of his servants to 
carry a set of shuttlecocks he had with him in a little 

box 



88 JVILL WIMBLE. 

box to a lady that lived about a mile off, to whom it 
seems he had promised such a present for above this 
half-year. Sir Roger's back was no sooner turned, 
but honest Will began to tell me of a large cock- 
pheasant that he had sprung in one of the neighbour- 
ing woods, with two or three other adventures of the 
same nature. Odd and uncommon characters are the 
game that I look for, and most delight in ; for which 
reason I was as much pleased with the novelty of the 
person that talked to me as he could be for his life 
with the springing of the pheasant, and therefore 
listened to him with more than ordinary attention. 

In the midst of this discourse the bell rung to 
dinner, where the gentleman I have been speaking of 
had the pleasure of seeing the huge jack he had 
caught, served up for the first dish in a most sumptu- 
ous manner. Upon our sitting down to it, he gave 
us a long account how he had hooked it, played with 
it, foiled it, and at length drev/ it out upon the bank, 
with several other particulars that lasted all the first 
course. A dish of wild fowl that came afterwards 
furnished conversation for the rest of the dinner, 
which concluded with a late invention of Will's for 
improving the quail-pipe. 

Upon withdrawing into my room after dinner, I 

was 



niLL WIMBLE. 89 

was secretly touched with compassion towards the 
honest gentleman that had dined with us ; and could 
not but consider with a great deal of concern, how 
so good an heart and such busy hands were wholly. 
employed in triiles ; that so much humanity should 
be so little beneficial to others, and so much industry 
so little advantageous to himself. The same temper 
of mind and application to affairs might have recom- 
mended him to the public esteem, and have raised his 
fortune in another station of life. What good to his 
country or himself might not a trader or merchant 
have done with such useful though ordinary qualifi- 
cations ? 

Will Wimble's is the case of many a younger 
brother of a great family, who had rather see their 
children starve like gentlemen, than thrive in a trade 
or profession that is beneath their quality. This 
humour fills several parts of Europe with pride and 
beggary. It is the happiness of a trading nation, like 
ours, that the younger sons, though incapable of any 
liberal art or profession, may be placed in such a way 
of life, as may perhaps enable them to vie with the 
best of their family : accordingly we find several citi- 
zens that were launched into the world with narrow 
fortunes, rising by an honest industry to greater 

estates 



90 IFILL WIMBLE. 

estates than those of their elder brothers. It is not 
improbable but Will was formerly tried at divinity, 
law or physic ; and that finding his genius did not lie 
that way, his parents gave him up at length to his 
own inventions. But certainly, however improper 
he might have been for studies of a higher nature, he 
was perfectly well turned for the occupations of trade 
and commerce. 

[July 4, 1711.] 



SIR 



Spectator] N 1 4 [Steele 

SIR ROGER DE COVERLETS 
ANCESTORS. 



Abnormis sapiens - 



— HOR. 



T WAS this morning walking in the gallery, when 
■^ Sir Roger entered at the end opposite to me, and 
advancing towards me, said he was glad to meet ma 
among his relations the De Coverleys, and hoped I 
liked the conversation of so much good company, who 
were as silent as myself. I knew he alluded to the 
pictures, and as he is a gentleman who does not a 
little value himself upon his ancient descent, I ex- 
pected he would give me some account of them. "We 
were now arrived at the upper end of the gallery, 
when the knight faced towards one of the pictures, 
and as we stood before it, he entered into the matter, 
after his blunt way of saying things, as they occur to 

his 



92 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY'S 

his imagination, without regular introduction, or care 
to preserve the appearance of chain of thought. 

* It is,' said he, ' worth while to consider the force 

* of dress ; and how the persons of one age differ 
' from those of another merely by that only. One 

* may observe also, that the general fashion of one age 

* has been followed by one particular set of people in 

* another, and by them preserved from one generation 

* to another. Thus the vast jetting coat and small 

* bonnet, which was the habit in Harry the Seventh's 

* time, is kept on in the yeomen of the guard ; not 

* without a good and politic view, because they look 

* a foot taller, and a foot and a-half broader ; besides, 

* that the cap leaves the face expanded, and conse- 

* quently more terrible, and fitter to stand at the 

* entrance of palaces. 

' This predecessor of ours, you see, is dressed after 

* this manner, and his cheeks would be no larger 

* than mine, were he in a hat as I am. He was the 

* last man that won a prize in the Tilt- Yard (which is 

* now a common street before Whitehall.) You see 

* the broken lance that lies there by his right foot ; 
' he shivered that lance of his adversary all to pieces; 
' and bearing himself, look you. Sir, in this manner, 

* at the same time he came within the target of the 

* gentleman 



ANCESTORS. 93 

* gentleman who rode against him, and taking him 

* with incredible force before him on the pommel of 

* his saddle, he in that manner rid the tournament 

* over, with an air that shewed he did it rather 

* to perform the rule of the lists than expose his 

* enemy ; however, it appeared he knew how to make 

* use of a victory, and with a gentle trot he marched 

* up to a gallery w^here their mistress sat (for they 
' were rivals), and let him down with laudable cour- 

* tesy and pardonable insolence. I don't know but 

* it might be exactly where the Coffee-house is now. 

' You are to know this my ancestor was not only 

* of a military genius, but fit also for the arts of peace, 

* for he played on the bass-viol as well as any gentle- 

* man at court ; you see where his viol hangs by his 
' basket-hilt sword. The action at the Tilt- Yard you 

* may be sure won the fair lady, who was a maid of 

* honour, and the greatest beauty of her time ; here 
' she stands, the next picture. You see. Sir, my 

* great-great-grandmother has on the new fashioned 

* petticoat, except that the modern is gathered at the 
' waist ; my grandmother appears as if she stood in a 

* large drum, whereas the ladies now walk as if they 

* were in a go-cart. For all this lady was bred at 

* court, she became an excellent country-wife, she 

' brought 



94 SIR ROGER DE COVERLET'S 

' brought ten children, and when I shew you the 
' library, you shall see in her own hand (allowing for 
' the difference of the language) the best receipt now 

* in England both for an hasty pudding and a white- 
'iot. 

' If you please to fall back a little, because 'tis 

* necessary to look at the three next pictures at one 

* view, these are three sisters. She on the right hand, 

* who is so very beautiful, died a maid ; the next to 

* her, still handsomer, had the same fate, against her 

* will ; this homely thing in the middle had both 

* their portions added to her own, and was stolen by 

* a neighbouring gentleman, a man of stratagem and 

* resolution, for he poisoned three mastiffs to come at 
' her, and knocked down two deer-stealers in carrying 

* her off. Misfortunes happen in all families : the 

* theft of this romp and so much money, was no great 

* matter to our estate. But the next heir that pos- 

* sessed it was this soft gentleman, whom you see 

* there : observe the small buttons, the little boots, 

* the laces, the slashes about his clothes, and above 

* all the posture he is drawn in (which to be sure was 

* his own choosing) ; you see he sits with one hand 

* on a desk writing, and looking as it were another 

* way, like an easy writer, or a sonneteer : he was 

' one 



ANCESTORS. 95 

* one of those that had too much wit to know how to 

* live in the world ; he was a man of no justice, but 

* great good manners ; he ruined everybody that had 
' anything to do with him, but never said a rude 

* thing in his life ; the most indolent person in the 
' world, he would sign a deed that passed away half 

* his estate with his gloves on, but would not put on 

* his hat before a lady, if it were to save his country. 

* He is said to be the first that made love by squeezing 

* the hand. He left the estate with ten thousand 

* pounds debt upon it ; but however, by all hands I 
' have been informed that he was every way the finest 

* gentleman in the world. That debt lay heavy on 

* our house for one generation, but it was retrieved 

* by a gift from that honest man you see there, a 

* citizen of our name, but nothing at all akin to us. 

* I know Sir Andrew Freeport has said behind my 

* back that this man was descended from one of the 

* ten children of the maid of honour I shewed you 

* above ; but it was never made out. We winked at 
' the thing indeed, because money was wanting at 

* that time.' 

Here I saw my friend a little embarrassed, and 
turned my face to the next portraiture. 

Sir Roger went on with his account of the gallery 



96 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY'S 

in the following manner. ' This man ' (pointing to 
him I looked at) ' I take to be the honour of our 

* house, Sir Humphrey de Coverley ; he was in his 

* dealings as punctual as a tradesman and as generous 

* as a gentleman. He would have thought himself 

* as much undone by breaking his word as if it were 

* to be followed by bankruptcy. He served his 

* country as knight of the shire to his dying day. 

* He found it no easy matter to maintain an integrity 

* in his words and actions, even in things that re- 

* garded the offices which were incumbent upon him, 

* in the care of his own affairs and relations of life; 

* and therefore dreaded (though he had great talents) 

* to go into employments of state, where he must 

* be exposed to the snares of ambition. Innocence of 

* life and great ability were the distinguishing parts 

* of his character ; the latter, he had often observed, 

* had led to the destruction of the former, and used 

* frequently to lament that great and good had not 
' the same signification. He was an excellent hus- 
' bandman, but had resolved not to exceed such a 

* degree of wealth ; all above it he bestowed in secret 

* bounties many years after the sum he aimed at for 

* his own use was attained. Yet he did not slacken 

* his industry, but to a decent old age spent the life 

* and 



ANCESTORS. 97 

* and fortune which was superfluous to himself, in 

* the service of his friends and neighbours.' 

Here we were called to dinner, and Sir Roger 
ended the discourse of this gentleman, by telling me, 
as we followed the servant, that this his ancestor was 
a brave man, and narrowly escaped being killed in the 
civil wars ; ' For,' said he, ' he was sent out of the 

* field upon a private message, the day before the 
' battle of Worcester.' The whim of narrowly escap- 
ing by having been within a day of danger, with 
other matters above-mentioned, mixed with good 
sense, left me at a loss whether I was more delighted 
with my friend's wisdom or simplicity. 

[July 5, 1711.] 



SIR 



Spectator] N 1 5 [Budgell 

SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY 
HARE-HUNTING. 



Vocat ingenti clamore Citharon, 

Taygetique canes • 

— ViRG. 



'T^HOSE who have searched into human nature 






observe, that nothing so much shews the 



nobleness of the soul, as that its felicity consists in 
action. Every man has such an active principle in 
him, that he will find out something to employ him- 
self upon, in whatever place or state of life he is 
posted. I have heard of a gentleman who was under 
close confinement in the Bastile seven years ; during 
which time he amused himself in scattering a few 
small pins about his chamber, gathering them up 
again, and placing them in different figures on the arm 
of a great chair. He often told his friends after\\'ards, 

that 



HARE - HUNTING. 99 

that unless lie had found out this piece of exercise, he 
verily believed he should have lost his senses. 

After what has been said, I need not inform my 
readers, that Sir Roger, with whose character I hope 
they are at present pretty well acquainted, has in his 
3'outh gone through the whole course of those rural 
diversions which the country abounds in ; and which 
seem to be extremely well suited to that laborious 
industry a man may observe here in a far greater 
degree than in towns and cities. I have before hinted 
at some of my friend's exploits : he has in his youth- 
ful days taken forty coveys of partridges in a season ; 
and tired many a salmon with a line consisting but 
of a single hair. The constant thanks and good 
wishes of the neighbourhood always attended him, on 
account of his remarkable enmity towards foxes ; 
having destroyed more of those vermin in one year, 
than it was thought the whole country could have 
produced. Indeed the knight does not scruple to own 
among his most intimate friends, that in order to 
establish his reputation this way, he has secretly sent 
for great numbers of them out of other counties, 
which he used to turn loose about the country by 
night, that he might the better signalise himself in 
their destruction the next day. His hunting-horses 

were 



loo SIR ROGER DE COVERLET 

were the finest and best managed in all these parts : 
his tenants are still full of the praises of a grey stone- 
horse that unhappily staked himself several years since, 
and was buried with great solemnity in the orchard. 

Sir Roger, being at present too old for fox-hunting, 
to keep himself in action, has disposed of his beagles, 
and got a pack of Stop-hounds. What these want in 
speed, he endeavours to make amends for by the 
deepness of their mouths and the variety of their 
notes, which are suited in such a manner to each 
other, that the whole cry makes up a complete con- 
cert. He is so nice in this particular, that a gentle- 
man having made him a present of a very fine hound 
the other day, the knight returned it by the servant 
with a great many expressions of civility ; but de- 
sired him to tell his master, that the dog he had sent 
was indeed a most excellent bass, but that at present 
he only wanted a counter-tenor. Could I believe my 
friend had ever read Shakespeare, I should certainly 
conclude he had taken the hint from Theseus in the 
Midsummer Night's Dream. 

My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind. 
So flew'd, so sanded ; and their heads are hung 
With ears that sweep away the morning dew ; 
Crooked-knee'd and dew-lapp'd like Thessalian bulls ; 



HARE- HUNTING. loi 

Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells, 
Each under each. A cry more tuneable 
Was never hoUa'd to, nor cheer'd with horn. 

Sir Roger is so keen at this sport, that he has been 
out almost every day since I came down ; and upon 
the chaplain's offering to lend me his easy pad, I was 
prevailed on yesterday morning to make one of the 
company. I was extremely pleased, as we rid along, 
to observe the general benevolence of all the neigh- 
bourhood towards my friend. The farmers' sons 
thought themselves happy if they could open a gate 
for the good old knight as he passed by; which he 
generally requited with a nod or a smile, and a kind 
inquiry after their fathers and uncles. 

After we had rid about a mile from home, we came 
upon a large heath, and the sportsmen began to beat. 
They had done so for some time, when, as I was at a 
little distance from the rest of the company, I saw a 
hare pop out from a small furze-brake almost under 
my horse's feet. I marked the way she took, which 
I endeavoured to make the company sensible of by 
extending my arm ; but to no purpose, until Sir 
Roger, who knows that none of my extraordinary 
motions are insignificant, rode up to me, and asked me 
* if Puss was gone that way ? ' Upon my answering 

' Yes,' 



102 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY 

' Yes,' he immediately called in the dogs, and put 
them upon the scent. As they were going off, I 
heard one of the country-fellows muttering to his 
companion, ' that 'twas a wonder they had not lost 

* all their sport, for want of the silent gentleman's 

* crying — Stole away J 

This, with my aversion to leaping hedges, made 
me withdraw to a rising ground, from whence I could 
have the pleasure of the whole chase, without the 
fatigue of keeping in with the hounds. The hare 
immediately threw them above a mile behind her; 
but I was pleased to find, that instead of running 
straight forwards, or in hunter's language, * flying 

* the country,' as I was afraid she might have done, 
she wheeled about, and described a sort of circle round 
the hill where I had taken my station, in such a 
manner as gave me a very distinct view of the sport. 
I could see her first pass by, and the dogs some time 
afterwards unravelling the whole track she had made, 
and following her through all her doubles. I was at 
the same time delighted in observing that deference 
which the rest of the pack paid to each particular 
hound, according to the character he had acquired 
amongst them: if they were at a fault, and an old 
hound of reputation opened but once, he was im- 
mediately 



HARE -HUNTING. 103 

mediately followed by the whole cry ; while a raw 
dog, or one who was a noted liar, might have yelped 
his heart out, without being taken notice of. 

The hare now, after having squatted two or three 
times, and been put up again as often, came still 
nearer to the place where she was at first started. 
The dogs pursued her, and these were followed by 
the jolly knight, who rode upon a white gelding, 
encompassed by his tenants and servants, and cheering 
his hounds with all the gaiety of five-and-twenty. 
One of the sportsmen rode up to me, and told me, 
that he was sure the chase was almost at an end, be- 
cause the old dogs, which had hitherto lain behind, 
now headed the pack. The fellow was in the right. 
Our hare took a large field just under us, followed by 
the full cry * in view.' I must confess the brightness 
of the weather, the cheerfulness of everything around 
me, the chiding of the hounds, which was returned 
upon us in a double echo from two neighbouring hills, 
with the hollaing of the sportsman, and the sounding 
of the horn, lifted my spirits into a most lively plea- 
sure, which I freely indulged, because I was sure it 
was innocent. If I was under any concern, it was 
on the account of the poor hare, that was now quite 
spent, and almost within the reach of her enemies ; 

when 



104 SIR ROGER HARE -HUNTING. 

when the huntsman getting forward, threw down his 
pole before the dogs. They were now within eight 
3'ards of that game which they had been pursuing for 
almost as many hours ; yet on the signal before-men- 
tioned they all made a sudden stand, and though they 
continued opening as much as before, durst not once 
attempt to pass beyond the pole. At the same time 
Sir Roger rode forward, and alighting, took up the 
hare in his arms ; which he soon delivered up to one 
of his servants, with an order, if she could be kept 
alive, to let her go in his great orchard; where it 
seems he has several of these prisoners of war, who 
live together in a very comfortable captivity. I was 
highly pleased to see the discipline of the pack, and 
the good-nature of the knight, who could not find in 
his heart to murder a creature that had given him so 
much diversion. 

[July 13, 1711.] 



THE 



Spectator] N 10 [Addison 

THE CITIZEN'S yOURNAL. 



- friiges consumere nati. 

— HOR. 



AUGUSTUS, a few moments before his death, 
^ asked his friends who stood about him, if they 
thought he had acted his part well ; and upon re- 
ceiving such an answer as was due to his extraordinary 
merit — ' Let me then,' says he, * go off the stage 
* with your applause ; ' using the expression with 
which the Roman actors made their Exit at the con- 
clusion of a dramatic piece. I could wish that men, 
while they are in health, would consider well the 
nature of the part they are engaged in, and what 
figure it will make in the minds of those they leave 
behind them : whether it was worth coming into the 
world for; whether it be suitable to a reasonable 
being; in short, whether it appears graceful in this 

life. 



io6 THE CITIZEN'S JOURNAL. 

life, or will turn to an advantage in the next. Let 
the sycophant, or buffoon, the satirist, or the good 
companion, consider with himself, when his body 
shall be laid in the grave, and his soul pass into an- 
other state of existence, how much it would redound 
to his praise to have it said of him, that no man in 
England eat better, that he had an admirable talent at 
turning his friends into ridicule, that nobody outdid 
him at an ill-natured jest, or that he never went to 
bed before he had despatched his third bottle. These 
are, however, very common funeral orations, and 
eulogiums on deceased persons who have acted among 
mankind with some figure and reputation. 

But if we, look into the bulk of our species, they 
are such as are not likely to be remembered a moment 
after their disappearance. They leave behind them 
no traces of their existence, but are forgotten as 
though they had never been. They are neither 
wanted by the poor, regretted by the rich, nor cele- 
brated by the learned. They are neither missed in 
the commonwealth, nor lamented by private persons. 
Their actions are of no significancy to mankind, and 
might have been performed by creatures of much less 
dignity than those who are distinguished by the 
faculty of reason. An eminent French author speaks 

somewhere 



THE CITIZEN'S JOURNAL. wy 

somewhere to the following purpose : ' I have often 

* seen from my chamber-window two noble creatures, 

* both of them of an erect countenance, and endowed 

* with reason. These two intellectual beings are 

* employed from morning to night, in rubbing two 

* smooth stones upon one another ; that is, as the 

* vulgar phrase it, in polishing marble.' 

My friend, Sir Andrew Freeport, as we were sitting 
in the club last night, gave us an account of a sober 
citizen, who died a few days since. This honest man 
being of greater consequence in his own thoughts, 
than in the eye of the world, had for some years past 
kept a journal of his life. Sir Andrew shewed us one 
week of it. Since the occurrences set down in it 
mark out such a road of action as that I have been 
speaking of, I shall present my reader with a faithful 
copy of it ; after having first informed him, that the 
deceased person had in his youth been bred to trade, 
but finding himself not so well turned for business, 
he had for several years last past lived altogether upon 
a moderate annuity. 

Monday, eight a-clock. I put on my clothes, and 
walked into the parlour. 

Nine 



io8 THE CITIZEN'S JOURNAL. 

Nine a-clock ditto. Tied my knee-strings, and 
washed my hands. 

Hours ten, eleven, and twelve. Smoked three 
pipes of Virginia. Read the Supplement and Daily 
Courant. Things go ill in the north. Mr. Nisby's 
opinion thereupon. 

One a-clock in the afternoon. Chid Ralph for mis- 
laying my tobacco-box. 

Two a-clock. Sat down to dinner. Mem. Too 
many plums, and no suet. 

From three to four. Took my afternoon's nap. 

From four to six. Walked into the fields. Wind, 
S. S. E. 

From six to ten. At the club. Mr. Nisby's 
opinion about the peace. 

Ten a-clock. Went to bed, slept sound. 

TuESDAT, being holiday, eight a-clock. Rose as 
usual. 

Nine a-clock. Washed hands and face, shaved, put 
on my double-soled shoes. 

Ten, eleven, twelve. Took a walk to Isling- 
ton. 

One. Took a pot of mother Cob's mild. 

Between two and three. Returned, dined on a 

knuckle 



THE CITIZEN'S JOURNAL. 109 

knuckle of veal and bacon. Mem. Sprouts want- 
ing. 

Three. Nap as usual. 

From four to six. Coffee-house. Read the news. 
A dish of twist. Grand Vizier strangled. 

From six to ten. At the club. Mr. Nisby's ac- 
count of the Great Turk. 

Ten. Dream of the Grand Vizier. Broken sleep. 

Wednesday, eight a-clock. Tongue of my shoe- 
buckle broke. Hands but not face. 

Nine. Paid off the butcher's bill. Mem. To be 
allowed for the last leg of mutton. 

Ten, eleven. At the coffee-house. More work in 
the north. Stranger in a black wig asked me how 
stocks went. 

From twelve to one. Walked in the fields. Wind 
to the south. 

From one to two. Smoked a pipe and a half. 

Two. Dined as usual. Stomach good. 

Three. Nap broke by the falling of a pewter dish. 
Mem. Cook-maid in love, and grown careless. 

From four to six. At the coffee-house. Advice 
from Smyrna, that the Grand Vizier was first of all 
Strangled, and afterwards beheaded. 

Six 



no THE CITIZEN'S JOURNAL. 

Six a-clock in the evening. Was half an hour in 
the club before any body else came. Mr. Nisby of 
opinion that the Grand Vizier was not strangled the 
sixth instant. 

Ten at night. Went to bed. Slept without wak- 
ing until nine next morning. 

Thursday, nine a-clock. Stayed within until two 
a-clock for Sir Timothy ; who did not bring me my 
annuity according to his promise. 

Two in the afternoon. Sat down to dinner. Loss 
of appetite. Small-beer sour. Beef over-corned. 

Three. Could not take my nap. 

Four and five. Gave Ralph a box on the ear. 
Turned off my cook-maid. Sent a messenger to Sir 
Timothy. Mem. I did not go to the club to-night. 
Went to bed at nine a-clock. 

Friday. Passed the morning in meditation upon 
Sir Timothy, who was with me a quarter before 
twelve. 

Twelve a-clock. Bought a new head to my cane, 
and a tongue to my buckle. Drank a glass of purl 
to recover appetite. 

Two and three. Dined, and slept well. 

From 



THE CITIZEN'S JOURNAL. iii 

From four to six. Went to the coffee-house. Met 
Mr. Nisby there. Smoked several pipes. Mr. Nisby 
of opinion that laced coffee is bad for the head. 

Six a-clock. At the club as steward. Sat late. 

Twelve a-clock. Went to bed, dreamt that I drank 
small beer with the Grand Vizier. 

Saturday. Waked at eleven, walked in the fields, 
wind N. E. 

Twelve. Caught in a shower. 

One in the Afternoon. Returned home, and dried 
myself. 

Two. Mr. Nisby dined with me. First course, 
marrow-bones ; second, ox-cheek, with a bottle of 
Brooks and Hellier. 

Three a-clock. Overslept myself. 

Six. Went to the club. Like to have fallen into 
a gutter. Grand Vizier certainly dead, &c. 

I question not but the reader will be surprised to 
find the above-mentioned journalist taking so much 
care of a life that was filled with such inconsiderable 
actions, and received so very small improvements ; 
and yet, if we look into the behaviour of many whom 
we daily converse with, we shall find that most of 

their 



112 THE CITIZEN'S JOURNAL. 

their hours are taken up in those three important 
articles of eating, drinking, and sleeping. I do 
not suppose than a man loses his time, who is not 
engaged in public affairs, or in an illustrious course of 
action. On the contrary, I believe our hours may 
very often be more profitably laid out in such transac- 
tions as make no figure in the world, than in such as 
are apt to draw upon them the attention of mankind. 
One may become wiser and better by several methods 
of employing one's self in secrecy and silence, and do 
what is laudable without noise or ostentation. I 
would, however, recommend to every one of my 
readers, the keeping a journal of their lives for one 
week, and setting down punctually their whole series 
of employments during that space of time. This kind 
of self-examination would give them a true state of 
themselves, and incline them to consider seriously 
what they are about. One day would rectify the 
omissions of another, and make a man weigh all those 
indifferent actions, which, though they are easily for- 
gotten, must certainly be accounted for, 

[March 4, 1712.] 



THE 



Spectator] N 1 7 [Addison 

THE FINE LADTS JOURNAL. 



- Modo vir, modo foemina 

— ViRG. 



*" I ^HE journal with which. I presented my reader 
-*- on Tuesday last, has brought me in several 
letters, with accounts of many private lives cast into 
that form. I have the Rake's Journal, the Sot's 
Journal, and among several others a very curious piece, 
entitled — ' The Journal of a Mohock.' By these in- 
stances I find that the intention of my last Tuesday's 
paper has been mistaken by many of my readers. I 
did not design so much to expose vice as idleness, and 
aimed at those persons who pass away their time 
rather in trifle and impertinence, than in crimes and 
immoralities. Offences of this latter kind are not to 
be dallied with, or treated in so ludicrous a manner. 
In short, my journal only holds up folly to the light, 

and 
10 



114 THE FINE LADY'S JOURNAL. 

and shews the disagreeableness of such actions as are 
indifferent in themselves, and blameable only as they 
proceed from creatures endowed with reason. 

My following correspondent, who calls herself 
Clarinda, is such a journalist as I require : she seems 
by her letter to be placed in a modish state of indiffer- 
ence between vice and virtue, and to be susceptible of 
either, were there proper pains taken with her. Had 
her journal been filled with gallantries, or such occur- 
rences as had shewn her wholly divested of her natural 
innocence, notwithstanding it might have been more 
pleasing to the generality of readers, I should not 
have published it ; but as it is only the picture of a 
life filled with a fashionable kind of gaiety and lazi- 
ness, I shall set down five days of it, as I have re- 
ceived it from the hand of my fair correspondent. 

DEAR MR, SPECTATOR, 

VOU having set your readers an exercise in one of* 
your last week's papers, I have performed mine 
according to your orders, and herewith send it you 
inclosed. You must know, Mr. Spectator, that I am 
a maiden lady of a good fortune, who have had several 
matches offered me for these ten years last past, and 
have at present warm applications made to me by a 

very 



THE FINE LADY'S JOURNAL. 115 

very pretty fellow. As I am at my own disposal, I 
come up to town every winter, and pass my time in 
it after the manner you will find in the following 
journal, which I began to write upon the very day 
after your Spectator upon that subject. 

Tuesday night. Could not go to sleep till one in 
the morning for thinking of my journal. 

Wednesday. From eight till ten. Drank two 
dishes of chocolate in bed, and fell asleep after them. 

From ten to eleven. Eat a slice of bread and 
butter, drank a dish of bohea, read the Spectator. 
^ From eleven to one. At my toilette, tried a new 
head. Gave orders for Veny to be combed and 
washed. Mem. I look best in blue. 

From one till half an hour after two. Drove to 
the Change. Cheapened a couple of fans. 

Till four. At dinner. Mem. Mr. Froth passed 
by in his new liveries. 

From four to six. Dressed, paid a visit to old 
Lady Blithe and her sister, having before heard they 
were gone out of town that day. 

From six to eleven. At Basset. Mem. Never 
set again upon the ace of diamonds. 

Thursday. 



ii6 THE FINE LADY'S JOURNAL. 

Thursday. From eleven at night to eight in the 
morning. Dreanied that I punted to Mr. Froth. 

From eight to ten. Chocolate. Read two acts in 
Aurengzebe a-bed. 

From ten to eleven. Tea-table. Read the play- 
bills. Received a letter from Mr. Froth. Mem. 
Locked it up in my strong box. 

Rest of the morning. Fontange, the tire-woman, 
her account of my Lady Blithe's wash. Broke a tooth 
in my little tortoise-shell comb. Sent Frank to know 
how my Lady Hectic rested after her monkey's leap- 
ing out at window. Looked pale. Fontange tells me 
my glass is not true. Dressed by three. 

From three to four. Dinner cold before I sat 
down. 

From four to eleven. Saw company. Mr. Froth's 
opinion of Milton. His account of the Mohocks. 
His fancy for a pin-cushion. Picture in the lid of his 
snuff-box. Old Lady Faddle promises me her woman 
to cut my hair. Lost five guineas at crimp. 

Twelve a'clock at night. Went to bed. 

Friday. Eight in the morning. A-bed. Read 
over all Mr. Froth's letters. 

Ten a'clock. Staid within all day, not at home. 

From 



THE FINE LADY'S JOURNAL. 117 

From ten to twelve. In conference with my 
mantua-maker. Sorted a suit of ribbons. Broke my 
blue china cup. 

From twelve to one. Shut myself up in my 
chamber, practised Lady Betty Modely's skuttle. 

One in the afternoon. Called for my flowered 
handkerchief. Worked half a violet-leaf in it. Eyes 
ached and head out of order. Threw by my work, 
and read over the remaining part of Aurengzebe. 

From three to four. Dined. 

From four to twelve. Changed my mind, dressed, 
went abroad, and played at crimp till midnight. 
Found Mrs. Spitely at home. Conversation : Mrs. 
Brilliant's necklace false stones. Old Lady Loveday 
going to be married to a young fellow that is not 
worth a groat. Miss Prue gone into the country. 
Tom Townley has red hair. Mem. Mrs. Spitely 
whispered in my ear that she had something to tell 
me about Mr. Froth, I am sure it is not true. 

Between twelve and one. Dreamed that Mr. Froth 
lay at my feet, and called me Indamora. 

Saturday. Rose at eight a'clock in the morning. 
Sat down to my toilette. 

From eight to nine. Shifted a patch for half an 

hour 



ii8 THE FINE LADY'S JOURNAL. 

hour before I could determine it. Fixed it above my 
left eye-brow. 

From nine to twelve. Drank my tea, and dressed. 

From twelve to two. At chapel. A great deal of 
good company. Mem. The third air in the new 
opera. Lady Blithe dressed frightfully. 

From three to four. Dined. Miss Kitty called 
upon me to go to the opera before I was risen from 
table. 

From dinner to six. Drank tea. Turned off a 
footman for being rude to Veny. 

Six a'clock. Went to the opera. I did not see 
Mr. Froth till the beginning of the second act. Mr. 
Froth talked to a gentleman in a black wig. Bowed 
to a lady in the front box. Mr. Froth and his friend 
clapped Nicolini in the third act. Mr. Froth cried 
out Ancora. Mr Froth led me to my chair. I think 
he squeezed my hand. 

Eleven at night. Went to bed. Melancholy 
dreams. Methought Nicolini said he was Mr. Froth. 

Sunday. Indisposed. 

Monday. Eight a'clock. Waked by Miss Kitty. 
Aurengzebe lay upon the chair by me. Kitty repeated 

without 



THE FINE LADY'S JOURNAL. 119 

•W'ithout book the eight best lines in the play. Went 
in our mobs to the dumb man according to appoint- 
ment. Told me that my lover's name began with a 
G. Mem. The conjurer was within a letter of Mr. 
Froth's name, &c. 

Upon looking back into this my journal, I find that 
I am at a loss to know whether I pass my time well 
or ill ; and indeed never thought of considering how 
I did it before I perused your speculation upon that 
subject. I scarce find a single action in these five 
days that I can thoroughly approve of, except the 
working upon the violet-leaf, which I am resolved to 
finish the first day I am at leisure. As for Mr. Froth 
and Veny, I did not think they took up so much of 
my time and thoughts as I find they do upon my 
journal. The latter of them I will turn off, if you 
insist upon it ; and if Mr. Froth does not bring matters 
to a conclusion very suddenly, I will not let my life 
run away in a dream. Your humble servant, 

Clarimda. 

To resume one of the morals of my first paper, and 
to confirm Clarinda in her good inclinations, I would 
have her consider what a pretty figure she would make 



120 THE FINE LADY'S JOURNAL. 

among posterity, were the history of her whole life 
published like these five days of it. I shall conclude 
my paper with an epitaph written by an uncertain 
author on Sir Philip Sidney's sister, a lady, who 
seems to have been of a temper very much different 
from that of Clarinda. The last thought of it is so 
very noble, that I dare say my reader will pardon me 
the quotation. 

ON THE COUNTESS DOWAGER OF PEMBROKE. 

T JNDERNEATH this marble hearse 

Lies the subject of all verse, 
Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother : 
Death, ere thou hast kill'd another, 
Fair, and learned, and good as she. 
Time shall throw a dart at thee. 

[March ii, 1712.] 



Spectator] N 1 8 [Addison 

SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY 
AT THE PLAY. 



Respicere exemplar vita morumqite juheho 
Doctiim imitatorem, et veras hinc diicere voces. 

— HOR. 



N/T Y friend Sir Roger de Coverle}'-, when we last 
-■- met together at the club, told me that he had 
a great mind to see the new tragedy with me, assur- 
ing me, at the same time, that he had not been at a 
play these twenty years. * The last I saw,' said Sir 
Roger, * was the Committee, which I should not have 

* gone to neither, had not I been told before-hand, 

* that it was a good Church of England comedy.' 
He then proceeded to inquire of me who this dis- 
tressed mother was ; and upon hearing that she was 
Hector's widow, he to'd me that her husband was a 
brave man, and that when he was a school-boy he had 

read 



122 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY 

read his life at the end of the dictionary. My friend 
asked me, in the next place, if there would not be 
some danger in coming home late, in case the 
Mohocks should be abroad. * I assure you,' says he, 

* I thought I had fallen into their hands last night ; 

* for I observed two or three lusty black men that 

* followed me half-way up Fleet Street, and mended 
' their pace behind me, in proportion as I put on to get 

* away from them. You must know,' continued the 
knight with a smile, ' I fancied they had a mind to 
' huni me ; for I remember an honest gentleman in 

* my neighbourhood, who was served such a trick in 

* King Charles the Second's time ; for which reason 

* he has not ventured himself in town ever since. I 

* might have shewn them very good sport, had this 

* been their design ; for as I am an old fox-hunter, I 

* should have turned and dodged, and have played 

* them a thousand tricks they had never seen in their 

* lives before.' Sir Roger added, that if these gentle- 
men had any such intention, they did not succeed very 
well in it : ' for I threw them out,' says he, ' at the 

* end of Norfolk Street, where I doubled the corner 

* and got shelter in my lodgings before they could 

* imagine what was become of me. However,' says 
the knight, ' if Captain Sentry will make one with us 

* to-morrow 



AT THE PLAY. 123 

* to-morrow night, and you will both of you call 

* upon me about four o'clock, that we may be at the 
< house before it is full, I will have my own coach in 

* readiness to attend you, for John tells me he has got 

* the fore- wheels mended.' 

The Captain, who did not fail to meet me there at 
the appointed hour, bid Sir Roger fear nothing, for 
that he had put on the same sword which he made 
use of at the battle of Steenkirk. Sir Roger's servants, 
and among the rest my old friend the butler, had, I 
found, provided themselves with good oaken plants, 
to attend their master upon this occasion. When he 
had placed him in his coach, with myself at his left 
hand, the Captain before him, and his butler at the 
head of his footmen in the rear, we convoyed him in 
safety to the play-house, where, after having marched 
up the entry in good order, the Captain and I went 
in with him, and seated him betwixt us in the pit. 
As soon as the house was full, and the candles 
hghted, my old friend stood up and looked about 
him with that pleasure, which a mind seasoned with 
humanity naturally feels in itself, at the sight of 
a multitude of people who seem pleased with one 
another, and partake of the same common entertain- 
ment. I could not but fancy to myself, as the old 

man 



124 SIR ROGER DE COVERLET 

man stood up in the middle of the pit, that he made a 
very proper centre to a tragic audience. Upon the 
entering of Pyrrhus, the knight told me that he did 
not believe the King of France himself had a better 
strut. I was indeed very attentive to my old friend's 
remarks, because I looked upon them as a piece of 
natural criticism, and was well pleased to hear him, 
at the conclusion of almost every scene, telling me 
that he could not imagine how the play would end. 
One while he appeared much concerned for An- 
dromache; and a little while after as much for 
Hermione ; and was extremely puzzled to think what 
would become of Pyrrhus. 

When Sir Roger saw Andromache's obstinate refusal 
to her lover's importunities, he whispered me in the ear, 
that he was sure she would never have him ; to which 
he added, with a more than ordinary vehemence — 

* You can't imagine. Sir, what 'tis to have to do with 

* a widow.' Upon Pyrrhus's threatening afterwards 
to leave her, the knight shook his head and muttered 
to himself — 'Ay, do if you can.' This part dwelt so 
much upon my friend's imagination, that at the close 
of the third act, as I was thinking of something else, 
he whispered me in the ear — ' These widows. Sir, are 

* the most perverse creatures in the world. But 

* pray,' 



AT TH-E PLAY. 125 

* pray,' says he, * you that are a critic, is the play 

* according to your dramatic rules, as you call them ? 

* Should your people in tragedy always talk to be 

* understood? Why, there is not a single sentence 

* in this play that I do not know the meaning of.' 

The fourth act very luckily begun before I had time 
to give the old gentleman an answer : * Well,' says 
the knight, sitting down with great satisfaction, ' I 

* suppose we are now to see Hector's ghost.' He then 
renewed his attention, and, from time to time, fell a 
praising the widow. He made, indeed, a little mis- 
take as to one of her pages, whom, at his first enter- 
ing, he took for Astyanax; but quickly set himself 
right in that particular, though, at the same time, he 
owned he should have been very glad to have seen 
the little boy, who, says he, must needs be a fine 
child by the account that is given of him. Upon 
Hermione's going off with a menace to Pyrrhus, the 
audience gave a loud clap, to which Sir Roger added 
— * On my word, a notable young baggage ! ' 

As there was a very remarkable silence and stillness 
in the audience during the whole action, it was 
natural for them to take the opportunity of the inter- 
vals between the acts, to express their opinion of the 
players, and of their respective parts. Sir Roger 

hearing 



126 SIR kOGER DE COVERLEY 

hearing a cluster of them praise Orestes, struck in 
with them, and told them, that he thought his friend 
Pylades was a very sensible man ; as they were after- 
wards applauding Pyrrhus, Sir Roger put in a second 
time : * And let me tell you,' says he, * though he 
' speaks but little, I like the old fellow in whiskers as 
* well as any of them.' Captain Sentry seeing two 
or three wags, who sat near us, lean with an attentive 
ear towards Sir Roger, and fearing lest they should 
smoke the knight, plucked him by the elbow, and 
whispered something m his ear, that lasted till the 
opening of the fifth act. The knight was wonderfully 
attentive to the account which Orestes gives of 
Pyrrhus's death ; and at the conclusion of it, told me 
it was such a bloody piece of work, that he was glad 
it was not done upon the stage. Seeing afterwards 
Orestes in his raving fit, he grew more than ordinary 
serious, and took occasion to moralise (in his way) 
upon an evil conscience ; adding, that Orestes, in his 
madness, looked as if he saw something. 

As we were the first that, came into the house, so 
we were the last that went out of it ; being resolved 
to have a clear passage for our old friend, whom we 
did not care to venture among the justling of the 
crowd. Sir Roger went out fully satisfied with his 
entertainment, 



AT THE PLAY. 127 

entertainment, and we guarded him to his lodging in 
the same manner that we brought him to the play- 
house ; being highly pleased, for my own part, not 
only with the performance of the excellent piece which 
had been presented, but with the satisfaction which it 
had given the old man. 

[March 25, 171 2.] 



Spectator] N^ 1 9 [Steele 

A DAY'S RAMBLE IN LONDON, 



Sine me, vacivum tempus ne quod dem mihi 
Lahoris, — Ter. 



T T is an inexpressible pleasure to know a little of 
•*- the world, and be of no character or significancy 
in it. 

To be ever unconcerned, and ever looking on new 
objects with an endless curiosity, is a delight known 
only to those who are turned for speculation : nay, 
they who enjoy it, must value things only as they 
are the objects of speculation, without drawing any 
worldly advantage to themselves from them, but just 
as they are what contribute to their amusements, or 
the improvement of the mind. I lay one night last 
week at Richmond; and being restless, not out of 
dissatisfaction, but a certain busy inclination one 
sometimes has, I rose at four in the morning, and 

took 



A DAY'S RAMBLE IN LONDON. 129 

took boat for London, with a resolution to rove by 
boat and coach for the next four and twenty hours, 
until the many different objects I must needs meet 
with should tire my imagination, and give me an 
inclination to a repose more profound than I was at 
that time capable of. I beg people's pardon for an 
odd humour I am guilty of, and was often that day, 
which is saluting any person whom I like, whether I 
know him or not. This is a particularity would be 
tolerated in me, if they considered that the greatest 
pleasure I know I receive at my eyes, and that I am 
obliged to an agreeable person for coming abroad into 
my view, as another is for a visit of conversation at 
their own houses. 

The hours of the day and night are taken up in the 
cities of London and Westminster, by people as differ- 
ent from each other as those who are born in different 
centuries. Men of six a-clock give way to those 
of nine, they of nine to the generation of twelve, and 
they of twelve disappear, and make room for the 
fashionable world who have made two a-clock the 
noon of the day. 

When we first put off from shore, we soon fell in 
with a fleet of gardeners bound for the several market- 
ports of London ; and it was the most pleasing scene 

imaginable 
11 



130 A DAY'S RAMBLE IN LONDON. 

imaginable to see the cheerfulness with which those 
industrious people plied their way to a certain sale of 
their goods. The banks on each side are as well 
peopled, and beautified with as agreeable plantations 
as any spot on the earth ; but the Thames itself, 
loaded with the product of each shore, added very 
much to the landscape. It was very easy to observe 
by their sailing, and the countenances of the ruddy 
virgins, who were super-cargoes, the parts of the town 
to which they were bound. There was an air in the 
purveyors for Covent Garden, who frequently converse 
with' morning rakes, very unlike the seemly sobriety 
of those bound for Stocks Market. 

Nothing remarkable happened in our voyage ; but 
1 landed with ten sail of apricot boats at Strand 
Bridge, after having put in at Nine-Elms, and taken 
in melons, consigned by Mr. Cuffe of that place, to 
Sarah Sewell and company, at their stall in Covent 
Garden. We arrived at Strand- Bridge at six of the 
clock, and were unloading, when the hackney-coach- 
men of the foregoing night took their leave of each 
other at the Dark-house, to go to bed before the day 
was too far spent. Chimney-sweepers passed by us 
as we made up to the market, and some raillery hap- 
pened between one of the fruit-wenches and those 

black 



A DAY'S RAMBLE IN LONDON. 131 

black men, about the Devil and Eve, with allusion to 
their several professions. I could not believe any 
place more entertaining than Covent Garden ; where 
I strolled from one fruit shop to another, with crowds 
of agreeable young women around me, who were 
purchasing fruit for their respective families. It was 
almost eight of the clock before I could leave that 
variety of objects. I took coach and followed a young 
lady, who tripped into another just before me, at- 
tended by her maid. I saw immediately she was of 
the family of the Vain-loves. There are a set of these 
who of all things affect the play of Blindman's-buff, 
and leading men into love for they not whom, who 
are fled they know not where. This sort of woman 
is usually a jaunty slattern ; she hangs on her clothes, 
plays her head, varies her posture, and changes place 
incessantly ; and all with an appearance of striving at 
the same time to hide herself, and yet give you to 
understand she is in humour to laugh at you. You 
must have often seen the coachmen make signs with 
their fingers as they drive by each other, to intimate 
how much they have got that day. They can carry 
on that language to give intelligence where they are 
driving. In an instant my coachman took the wink 
to pursue, and the lady's driver gave the hint that he 

was 



132 A DAY'S RAMBLE IN LONDON. 

was going through Long- Acre, towards St. James's. 
While he whipped up James- Street, we drove for 
King- Street, to save the pass at St. Martin's -Lane. 
The coachmen took care to meet, jostle, and threaten 
each other for way, and be entangled at the end of 
Newport- Street and Long- Acre. The fright, you 
must believe, brought down the lady's coach-door, 
and obliged her, with her mask off, to enquire into 
the bustle, when she sees the man she would avoid. 
The tackle of the coach-window is so bad she can- 
not draw it up again, and she drives on sometimes 
wholly discovered, and sometimes half escaped, ac- 
cording to the accident of carriages in her way. One 
of these ladies keeps her seat in a hackney-coach, as 
well as the best rider does on a managed horse. The 
laced shoe of her left foot, with a careless gesture, 
just appearing on the opposite cushion, held her both 
firm, and in a proper attitude to receive the next jolt. 
As she was an excellent coach-woman, many were 
the glances at each other which we had for an hour 
and an half, in all parts of the town, by the skill of 
our drivers ; until at last my lady was conveniently 
lost with notice from her coachman to ours to make 
off, and he should hear where she went. This chase 
was now at an end, and the fellow who drove her 

came 



A DAY'S RAMBLE IN LONDON. 135 

came to us, and discovered that he was ordered to 
come again in an hour, for that she was a Silk- worm, 
I was surprised with this phrase, but found it was a 
cant among the hackney fraternity for their best cus- 
tomers, women who ramble twice or thrice a week 
from shop to shop, to turn over all the goods in town 
without buying anything. The Silk-worms are, it 
seems, indulged by the tradesmen ; for though they 
never buy, they are ever talking of new silks, laces, 
and ribbons, and serve the owners, in getting them 
customers as their common dunners do in making 
them pay. 

The day of people of fashion began now to break, 
and carts and hacks were mingled with equipages of 
show and vanity ; when I resolved to walk it out of 
cheapness; but my unhappy curiosity is such, that I 
find it always my interest to take coach, for some odd 
adventure among beggars, ballad-singers, or the like, 
detains and throws me into expense. It happened so 
immediately ; for at the corner of Warwick Street, as 
I was listening to a new ballad, a ragged rascal, a 
beggar who knew me, came up to me, and began to 
turn the eyes of the good company upon me, by 
telling me he was extreme poor, and should die in 
the street for want of drink, except I immediately 

would 



134 A DAY'S RAMBLE IN LONDON. 

would have the chanty to give him sixpence to go 
into the next alehouse and save his life. He urged, 
with a melancholy face, that all his family had died of 
thirst. All the mob have humour, and two or three 
began to take the jest; by which Mr. Sturdy carried 
his point, and let me sneak off to a coach. As I 
drove along, it was a pleasing reflection to see the 
world so prettily checkered since I left Richmond, 
and the scene still filling with children of a new hour. 
This satisfaction increased as I moved towards the 
city, and gay signs, well disposed streets, magnificent 
public structures, and wealthy shops, adorned with 
contented faces, made the joy still rising till we came 
into the centre of the city, and centre of the world of 
trade, the Exchange of London. As other men in 
the crowds about me were pleased with their hopes 
and bargains, I found my account in observing them, 
in attention to their several interests. I, indeed, 
looked upon myself as the richest man that walked 
the Exchange that day ; for my benevolence made me 
share the gains of every bargain that was made. It 
was not the least of my satisfactions in my survey, to 
go up stairs, and pass the shops of agreeable females ; 
to observe so many pretty hands busy in the folding 
of ribbons, and the utmost eagerness of agreeable 

faces 



A DAY'S RAMBLE IN LONDON. 135 

faces in the sale of patches, pins, and wires, on each 
side the counters, was an amusement in which I 
should longer have indulged myself, had not the dear 
creatures called to me to ask what I wanted, when I 
could not answer, only 'To look at you.* Iweiit to 
one of the windows which opened to the area below, 
where all the several voices lost their distinction, and 
rose up in a confused humming, which created in 
me a reflection that could not come into the mind of 
any but of one a little too studious ; for I said to my- 
self, with a kind of pun in thought — ' What nonsense 

* is all the hurry of this world to those who are above 

* it ? ' In these, or not much wiser thoughts, I had 
like to have lost my place at the chop-house, where 
every man, according to the natural bashfulness or 
suUenness of our nation, eats in a public room a mess 
of broth, or chop of meat, in dumb silence, as if they 
had no pretence to speak to each other on the foot 
of being- men, except they were of each other's 
acquaintance. 

I went afterwards to Robin's, and saw people who 
had dined with me at the fivepenny ordinary just 
before, give bills for the value of large estates ; and 
could not but behold with great pleasure, property 
lodged in, and transferred in a moment from such as 

would 



136 A DAY'S RAMBLE IN LONDON. 

would never be masters of half as much as is seem- 
ingly in them, and given from them every day they 
live. But before five in the afternoon I left the city, 
came to my common scene of Covent Garden, and 
passed the evening at Will's, in attending the dis- 
courses of several sets of people, who relieved each 
other within my hearing on the subject of cards, dice, 
love, learning, and politics. The last subject kept me 
until I heard the streets in the possession of the bell- 
man, who had now the world to himself, and cried — 
* Past two of the clock.' This roused me from my 
seat, and I went to my lodging, led by a light, whom 
I put into the discourse of his private economy, and 
made him give me an account of the charge, hazard, 
profit, and loss of a family that depended upon a link, 
with a design to end my trivial day with the gene- 
rosity of sixpence, instead of a third part of that sum. 
When I came to my chambers I writ down these 
minutes ; but was at a loss what instruction I should 
propose to my reader from the enumeration of so 
many insignificant matters and occurrences ; and I 
thought it of great use, if they could learn with me 
to keep their minds open to gratification, and ready to 
receive it from anything it meets with. This one 
circumstance will make every face you see give you 

the 



A DAY'S RAMBLE IN LONDON. 137 

the satisfaction you now take in beholding that of a 
friend ; will make every object a pleasing one ; will 
make all the good which arrives to any man, an 
increase of happiness to yourself. 

[August II, 1712.] 



DICK 



Spectator] N*^ 20 [Steele 

DICK EST COURT : IN MEMORIAM. 



Erat homo ingeniosus, acutus, acer, et qui pluriviuiti 
et sails haberet et fellis, nee candoris minus. — Plin. 



MY paper is in a kind a letter of news, but it 
regards rather what passes in the world of 
conversation than that of business. I am very sorry 
that I have at present a circumstance before me, which 
is of very great importance to all who have a relish 
for gaiety, wit, mirth, or humour ; I mean the death 
of poor Dick Estcourt. 1 have been obliged to him for 
so many hours of jollity, that it is but a small recom- 
pense, though all I can give him, to pass a moment or 
two in sadness for the loss of so agreeable a man. 
Poor Estcourt 1 the last time I saw him, we were 
plotting to shew the town his great capacity for acting 
in its full light, by introducing him as dictating to a 
set of young players in what manner to speak this 

sentence, 



DICK ESTCO UR T : IN MEMORIAM. 139 

sentence, and utter t'other passion. — He had so exqui- 
site a discerning of what was defective in any object 
before him, that in an instant he could show you the 
ridiculous side of what would pass for beautiful and 
just, even to men of no ill judgment, before he had 
pointed at the failure. He was no less skilful in the 
knowledge of beauty ; and, I dare say, there is no one 
who knew him well, but can repeat more well-turned 
compliments, as well as smart repartees, of Mr. Est- 
court's, than of any other man in England. This was 
easily to be observed in his inimitable faculty of telling 
a story, in which he would throw in natural and un- 
expected incidents to make his court to one part, and 
rally the other part of the company : then he would vary 
the usage he gave them, according as he saw them bear 
kind or sharp language. He had the knack to raise 
up a pensive temper, and mortify an impertinently gay 
one, with the most agreeable skill imaginable. There 
are a thousand things which crowd into my memory, 
which make me too much concerned to tell on about 
him. Hamlet holding up the skull which the grave- 
digger threw to him, with an account that it was the 
head of the king's jester, falls into very pleasing 
reflections, and cries out to his companion— 

* Alas, poor Ycrick ! I knew him, Horatio : a 

' fellow 



HO DICK ESTCOUKT: IN MEMORIAM. 

* fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy : he 
' hath borne me on his back a thousand times ; and 

* now how abhorred in my imagination it is ! my gorge 

* rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed 

* I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now ? 

* your gambols ? your songs ? your flashes of merri- 

* ment, that were wont to set the table on a roar ? 

* Not one now to mock your own grinning "i quite 

* chop-fallen ? Now get you to my lady's chamber, 

* and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this 

* favour she must come;^ make her laugh at that.' 

It is an insolence natural to the wealthy,, to affix, 
as much as in, them lies, the character of a man to 
his circumstances. Thus it is ordinary with them 
to praise faintly the good quali^jes of those below 
them, and say, it is very extraordinary in such a 
man as he is, or the like, when they are forced to 
acknowledge the value of him whose lowness upbraids 
their exaltation. It is to this humour only, that it is 
to be ascribed that a quick wit in conversation, a 
nice judgment upon any emergency that could arise, 
and a most blameless inoffensive behaviour could not 
raise this man above being received only upon the 
foot of contributing to mirth and diversion. But he 
was as easy under that condition, as a man of so 

excellent 



DICK ESTCOURT: IN MEMORIAM. 141 

excellent talents was capable, and since they would 
have it that to divert was his business, he did it 
with all the seeming alacrity imaginable, though it 
stung him to the heart that it was his business. 
Men of sense, who could taste his excellencies, were 
well satisfied to let him lead the way in conversation, 
and play after his own manner ; but fools who 
provoked him to mimicry, found ha had the indig- 
nation to let it be at their expense, who called for 
it, and be would show the form of conceited heavy 
fellows as jests to the company at their own request, 
in revenge for interrupting him from being a com- 
panion to put on the character of a jester. 

What was peculiarly excellent in this memorable 
companion, was, that in the account he gave of per- 
sons and sentiments, he did not only hit the figure 
of their faces, and manner of their gestures, but he 
would in his narration fall into their very way of 
thinking, and this when he recounted passages 
wherein men of the best wit were concerned, as 
well as such wherein were represented men of the 
lowest rank of understanding. It is certainly as great 
an instance of self-love to a weakness, to be impatient 
of being mimicked, as any can be imagined. There 
^•ere none but the vain, the formal, the proud, or 

those^ 



142 DICK ESTCOURT : IN MEMO RI AM. 

those who were incapable of amending their faults, 
that dreaded him; to others he was in the highest 
degree pleasing ; and I do not know any satisfaction 
of any indifferent kind I ever tasted so much as having 
got over an impatience of my seeing myself in the 
air he could put me when I have displeased him. It 
is indeed to his exquisite talent this way, more than 
any philosophy I could read on the subject, that my 
person is very little of my care, and it is indifferent 
to me what is said of my shape, my air, my manner, 
my speech, or my address. It is to poor Estcourt 
I chiefly owe that I am arrived at the happiness of 
thinking nothing a diminution to me but what argues 
a depravity of my will. 

It has as much surprised me as anything in nature, 
to have it frequently said. That he was not a good 
player : but that must be owing to a partiality for 
former actors in the parts in which he succeeded 
them, and judging by comparison of what was liked 
before, rather than by the nature of the thing. When 
a man of his wit and smartness could put on an 
utter absence of common sense in his face, as he 
did in the character of Bullfinch in the Northern 
Lass, and an air of insipid cunning and vivacity in 
the character of Pounce in the Tender Husband, it 



DICK ESTCOURT: IN MEMORIAM. 143 

is folly to dispute his capacity and success, as he was 
an actor. 

Poor Estcourt ! let the vain and proud be at rest, 
they will no more disturb their admiration of their 
dear selves, and thou art no longer to drudge in 
raising the mirth of stupids, who know nothing of 
thy merit, for thy maintenance. 

It is natural for the generality of mankind to run 
into reflections upon our mortality, when disturbers 
of the world are laid at rest, but to take no notice 
when they who can please and divert are pulled from 
us : but for my part, I cannot but think the loss of 
such talents as the man of whom I am speaking was 
master of, a more melancholy instance of mortality 
than the dissolution of persons of never so high char- 
acters in the world, whose pretensions were that they 
W'Cre noisy and mischievous. 

But I must grow more succinct, and as a Spec- 
tator, give an account of this extraordinary man, 
who, in his way, never had an equal in any age be- 
fore him, or in that wherein he lived. I speak of him 
as a companion, and a man qualified for conversation. 
His fortune exposed him to an obsequiousness to- 
wards the worst sort of company, but his excellent 
qualities rendered him capable of making the best 

figure 



144 I^ICK ESTCOURT: IN MEMORIAM. 

figure in the most refined. I have been present 
with him among men of the most delicate taste a 
whole night, and have known him (for he saw it 
was desired) keep the discourse to himself the most 
part of it, and maintain his good humour with a 
countenance in a language so delightful, without 
offence to any person or thing upon earth, still pre- 
serving the distance his circumstances obliged him 
to; I say, I have seen him do all this in such a 
charming manner, that I am sure none of those I 
hint at will read this, without giving him some 
sorrow for their abundant mirth, and one gush of 
tears for so many bursts of laughter. I wish it were 
any honour to the pleasant creature's memory, that 
my eyes are too much suffused to let me go on 

[August 27, 1712.] 



DEATH 



Spectator] N 21 [Addison 

DEATH OF SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY. 



Heu pietas ! Heu prisca fides i 

— ViRG. 



WE last night received a piece of ill news at 
our club, which very sensibly afflicted every 
one of us. I question not but my readers themselves 
will be troubled at the hearing of it. To keep them 
no longer in suspense. Sir Roger de Coverley is dead. 
He departed this life at his house in the country, after 
a few weeks' sickness. Sir Andrew Freeport has a 
letter from one of his correspondents in those parts, 
that informs him the old man caught a cold at the 
county-sessions, as he v/as. very warinly promoting an 
address of his own penning, in which he succeeded 
according to his wishes. But this particular comes 
from a Whig justice of peace, who was always Sir 
Roger's enemy and antagonist. I have letters both 

from 
12 



146 DEATH OF 

from the chaplain and Captain Sentry which mention 
nothing of it, but are filled with many particulars to 
the honour of the good old man. I have likewise 
a letter from the butler, who took so much care of 
me last summer when I was at the knight's house. 
As my friend the butler mentions, in the simplicity 
of his heart, several circumstances the others have 
passed over in silence, I shall give my reader a copy 
of his letter, without any alteration or diminution. 

HONOURED SIR, 

T^NOWING that you was my old master's good 
friend, I could not forbear sending you the 
melancholy news of his death, which has affected 
the whole country, as well as his poor servants, 
who loved him, I may say, better than we did our 
lives. I am afraid he caught his death the last 
county-sessions, where he would go to see justice 
done to a poor widow woman and her fatherless 
children, that had been wronged by a neighbouring 
gentleman ; for you know. Sir, my good master was 
always the poor man's friend. Upon his coming 
home, the first complaint he made was, that he had 
lost his roast-beef stomach, not being able to touch 
a sirloin, which was served up according to custom ; 

and 



SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY. 



147 



and you know he used to take great delight in it. 
From that time forward he grew worse and worse, 
but still kept a good heart to the last. Indeed, we 
were once in great hope of his recovery, upon a kind 
message that was sent him from the widow lady whom 
he had made love to the forty last years of his life ; 
but this only proved a light'ning before death. He 
has bequeathed to this lady, as a token of his love, a 
great pearl necklace, and a couple of silver bracelets 
set with jewels, which belonged to my good old lady 
his mother : he has bequeathed the fine white gelding, 
that he used to ride a-hunting upon, to his chaplain, 
because he thought he would be kind to him, and 
has left you all his books. He has, moreover, be- 
queathed to the chaplain a very pretty tenement 
with good lands about it. It being a very cold day 
when he made his will, he left for mourning, to every 
man in the parish, a great frieze coat, and to every 
w^oman a black riding-hood. It was a most moving 
sight to see him take leave of his poor servants, 
commending us all for our fidelity, whilst we were 
not able to speak a word for weeping. As we most 
of us are grown grey-headed in our dear master's 
service, he has left us pensions and legacies, which 
we may live very comfortably upon, the remaining 

part 



148 DEATH OF 

part of our days. He has bequeathed a great deal 
more in charity, which is not yet come to my know- 
ledge, and it is peremptorily said in the parisji, that 
he has left money to build a steeple to the church; 
for he was heard to say some time ago, that if he 
lived two years longer, Coverley church should have 
a steeple to it. The chaplain tells everybody that 
he made a very good end, and never speaks of him 
without tears. He was buried, according to his own 
directions, among the family of the Coverleys, on 
the left-hand of his father Sir Arthur. The coffin 
was carried by six of his tenants, and the pall held 
up by six of the quorum : the whole parish followed 
the corpse with heavy hearts, and in their mourning 
suits, the men in frieze, and the women in riding- 
hoods. Captain Sentry, my master's nephew, has 
taken possession of the Hall-House, and the whole 
estate. When my old master saw him a little before 
his death, he shook him by the hand, and wished 
him joy of the estate which was falling to him, de- 
siring him only to make a good use of it, and pay 
the several legacies and the gifts of charity which he 
told him he had left as quit-rents upon the estate. 
The captain truly seems a courteous man, though he 
says but little. He makes much of those whom my 

master 



SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY. 



149 



master loved, and shows great kindness to the old 
house-dog, that you know my poor master was so 
fond of. It would have gone to your heart to have 
heard the moans the dumb creature made on the 
day of my master's death. He has never joyed him- 
self since; no more has any of us. It was the 
melancholiest day for the poor people that ever hap- 
pened in Worcestershire. This being all from, 
Honoured Sir, 

Your most sorrowful servant, 

Edward Biscuit. 

P. S. My master desired, some weeks before he died, 
that a book, which comes up to you by the carrier, 
should be given to Sir Andrew Freeport, in his name. 

This letter, notwithstanding the poor butler's man- 
ner of writing it, gave us such an idea of our good 
old friend that upon the reading of it there was not 
a dry eye in the club. Sir Andrew, opening the 
book, found it to be a collection of acts of parliament. 
There was in particular the Act of Uniformity, with 
some passages in it marked by Sir Roger's own hand. 
Sir Andrew found that they related to two or three 
points, which he had disputed with Sir Roger the 
last time he appeared at the club. Sir Andrew, who 

would 



I50 DEATH OF SIR ROGER. 

would have been merry at such an incident on an- 
other occasion, at the sight of the old man's hand- 
writing burst into tears, and put the book into his 
pocket. Captain Sentry informs me that the knight 
has left rings and mourning for every one in the 
club. 

[Octoher 23, 1712.] 



THE 



Free-holder] N 23 [Addison- 

THE TORY FOXHUNTER. 



Studtis rudis, sermone harharus, impetti sirenuus, 
inanu promptus, cogitatione celer. — Vell. Paterc. 



FOR the honour of his Majesty, and the safety of 
his government, we cannot but observe, that 
those, who have appeared the greatest enemies to 
both, are of that rank of men, who are commonly 
distinguished by the title df Fox-hunters. As several 
of these have had no part of their education in cities, 
camps, or courts, it is doubtful whether they are of 
greater ornament or use to the nation in which they 
live. It would be an everlasting reproach to politics, 
should such men be able to overturn an establishment 
which has been formed by the wisest laws, and is sup- 
ported by the ablest heads. The wrong notions and 
prejudices which cleave to many of these country- 
gentlemen, who have always lived out of the way of 

being 



152 



THE TORY FOXHUNTER. 



being better informed, are not easy to be conceived 
by a person who has never conversed with them. 

That I may give my readers an image of these rural 
statesmen, I shall, without further preface, set down 
an account of a discourse I chanced to have with one 
of them some time ago. I was travelling towards one 
of the remotest parts of England, when about three 
o'clock in the afternoon, seeing a country-gentleman 
trotting before me with a spaniel by his horse's side, 
I made up to him. Our conversation opened, as 
usual, upon the weather; in which we were very 
unanimous ; having both agreed that it was too dry 
for the season of the year. My fellow-traveller, upon 
this, observed to me, that there had been no good 
weather since the Revolution. I was a little startled 
at so extraordinary a remark, but would not interrupt 
him until he proceeded to tell me of the fine weather 
they used to have in King Charles the Second's reign. 
I only answered that I did not see how the badness of 
the weather could be the king's fault ; and, without 
waiting for his reply, asked him whose house it was 
we saw upon a rising ground at a little distance from 
us. He told me it belonged to an old fanatical cur, 
Mr. Such-a-one. ' You must have heard of him,' 
says he, * he's one of the Rump.' I knew the gentle- 
man's 



THE TOR Y FOXHUNTER. 1 5 3 

man's character upon hearing his name, but assured 
him that to my knowledge he was a good churchman. 

* Ay ! ' says he with a kind of surprise, ' We were 

* told in the country, that he spoke twice in the queen's 
' time against taking off the duties upon French claret.' 
This naturally led us into the proceedings of late par- 
liaments, upon which occasion he affirmed roundly, 
that there had not been one good law passed since 
King William's accession to the throne, except the 
act for preserving the game. I had a mind to see 
him out, and therefore did not care for contradicting 
him. ' Is it not hard,' says he, ' that honest gentle- 
' men should be taken into custody of messengers to 

* prevent them from acting according to their con- 

* sciences? But,' says he, 'what can we expect 

* when a parcel of factious sons of ' He was 

going on in great passion, but chanced to miss his 
dog, who was amusing himself about a bush that 
grew at some distance behind us. We stood still till 
he had whistled him up ; when he fell into a long 
panegyric upon his spaniel, who seemed indeed ex- 
cellent in his kind : but I found the most remarkable 
adventure of his life was, that he had once like to 
have worried a dissenting-teacher. The master could 
hardly sit on his horse for laughing all the while he 

was 



154 THE TORY FOXHUNTER. 

was giving me the particulars of this story, which I 
found had mightily endeared his dog to him, and, as 
he himself told me, had made him a great favourite 
among all the honest gentlemen of the country. We 
were at length diverted from this piece of mirth by a 
post-boy, who winding his horn at us, my companion 
gave him two or three curses, and left the way clear 
for him. ' I fancy,' said I, ' that post brings news 

* from Scotland. I shall long to see the next Gazette.' 

* Sir,' says he, ' I make it a rule never to believe any 

* of your printed news. We never see, sir, how 

* things go, except now and then in " Dyer's Letter," 

* and I read that more for the style than the news. 

* The man has a clever pen, it must be owned. But is 

* it not strange that we should be making war upon 

* Church -of- England men, with Dutch and Swiss 
^ soldiers, men of antimonarchical principles ? These 

* foreigners will never be loved in England, sir ; they 

* have not that wit and good -breeding that we have.' 
I must confess I did not expect to hear my new ac- 
quaintance value himself upon these qualifications; 
but finding him such a critic upon foreigners, I asked 
him if he had ever travelled ? He told me, he did not 
know what travelling was good for, but to teach a 
man to ride the great horse, to jabber French, and to 

talk 



THE TOR Y FOXHUNTER. 1 5 5 

talk against passive-obedience : To which he added, 
that he scarce ever knew a traveller in his life who 
had not forsook his principles, and lost his hunting- 
seat. ' For my part,' says he, * I and my father 

* before me have always been for passive-obedience, 

* and shall be always for opposing a prince who makes 

* use of ministers that are of another opinion. But 

* where do you intend to inn to-night ? (for we were 

* now come in sight of the next town ;) I can help you 

* to a very good landlord if you will go along with me. 
' He is a lusty, jolly fellow, that lives well, at least 
' three yards in the girth, and the best Church-of- 

* England man upon the road.' I had the curiosity 
to see this high-church inn-keeper, as well as to enjoy 
more of the conversation of my fellow-traveller, and 
therefore readily consented to set our horses together 
for that night. As we rode side by side through 
the town, I was let into the characters of all the 
principal inhabitants whom we met in our w^ay. 
One was a dog, another a whelp, and another a 
cur, under which several denominations were com- 
prehended all that voted on the Whig side in the 
last election of burgesses. As for those of his ov/n 
party, he distinguished them by a nod of his head, 
and asking them how they did by their Christian 

names. 



156 THE TORY FOXHUNTER. 

names. Upon our arrival at the inn, my companion 
fetched out the jolly landlord, who knew him by his 
whistle. Many endearments and private whispers 
passed between them; though it was easy to see 
by the landlord's scratching his head that things did 
not go to their wishes. The landlord had swelled 
his body to a prodigious size, and worked up his 
complexion to a standing crimson by his zeal for the 
prosperity of the Church, which he expressed every 
hour of the day, as his customers dropt in, by repeated 
bumpers. He had not time to go to church himself, 
but, as my friend told me in my ear, had headed a 
mob at the pulling down of two or three meeting- 
houses. While supper was preparing, he enlarged 
upon the happiness of the neighbouring shire ; ' For,' 
says he, ' there is scarce a Presbyterian in the whole 
* county, except the bishop.' In short, I found by his 
discourse that he had learned a great deal of politics, 
but not one word of religion, from the parson of his 
parish; and indeed, that he had scarce any other 
notion of religion, but that it consisted in hating 
Presbyterians. I had a remarkable instance of his 
notions in this particular. . Upon seeing a poor de- 
crepit old woman pass under the window where he 
sat, he desired me to take notice of her ; and after- 
wards 



THE TOR Y FOXHUNTER. i s 7 

wards informed me, that she was generally reputed a 
witch by the country people, but that, for his part, 
he was apt to believe she was a Presbyterian. 

Supper was no sooner served in, than he took occa- 
sion, from a shoulder of mutton that lay before us, to 
cry up the plenty of England, which would be the 
happiest country in the world, provided we would 
live within ourselves. Upon which, he expatiated 
on the inconveniences of trade, that carried from us 
the commodities of our country, and made a parcel of 
upstarts as rich as men of the most ancient families 
of England. He then declared frankly, that he had 
always been against all treaties and alliances, with 
foreigners : ' Our wooden walls,' says he, ' are our 

* security, and we may bid defiance to the whole 

* world, especially if they should attack us when the 

* militia is out.' I ventured to reply, that I had as 
great an opinion of the English fleet as he had ; but I 
could not see how they could be paid, and manned, 
and fitted out, unless we encouraged trade and naviga- 
tion. He replied with some vehemence. That he 
would undertake to prove trade would be the ruin of 
the English nation. I would fain have put him upon 
it; but he contented himself with affirming it 
more eagerly, to which he added two or three curses 

upon 



158 THE TORY FOXHUNTER. 

upon the London merchants, not forgetting the 
directors of the Bank. After supper he asked me if I 
was an admirer of punch ; and immediately called for 
a sneaker. I took this occasion to insinuate the ad- 
vantages of trade, by observing to him, that water was 
the only native of England that could be made use of 
on this occasion : but that the lemons, the brandy, 
the sugar, and the nutmeg, were all foreigners. This 
put him into some confusion : but the landlord who 
overheard me, brought him oiF, by affirming. That 
for constant use there was no liquor like a cup of 
English water, provided it had malt enough in it. 
My squire laughed heartily at the conceit, and made 
the landlord sit down with us. We sat pretty late 
over our punch ; and amidst a great deal of improving 
discourse, drank the healths of several persons in the 
country, whom I had never heard of, that, they both 
assured me, were the ablest statesmen in the nation ; 
and of some Londoners, whom they extolled to the 
skies for their wit, and who, I knew, passed in town 
for silly fellows. It being now midnight, and my 
friend perceiving by his almanack that the moon was 
up, he called for his horse, and took a sudden resolu- 
tion to go to his house, which was at three miles* 
distance from the town, after having bethought him- 
self 



THE TORY FOXHUNTER. 159 

self tliat he never slept well out of his own bed. He 
shook me very heartily by the hand at parting, and 
discovered a great air of satisfaction in his looks, that 
he had met with an opportunity of showing his parts, 
and left me a much wiser man than he found me. 

[March 5, 1716.] 



World] N° 23 [Chesterfield 

A MODERN CONVERSATION. 



[Vidtis severi me quoque sumere^ 
Partem Fakrni? — Hor.] 



AN old friend and fellow-student of mine at the 
^ university called upon me the other morning, 
and found me reading Plato's Symposion. I laid 
down my book to receive him ; which, after the first 
usual compliments, he took up, saying — ' You will 
' give me leave to see what was the object of your 

* studies.' ' Nothing less than the divine Plato,' 
said I, ' that amiable philosopher ' — ' With whom,' 
interrupted my friend, * Cicero declares, that he would 
' rather be in the wrong, than in the right with any 

* other.' — ' I cannot,' replied I, ' carry my veneration 

* for him to that degree of enthusiasm ; but yet, 

* wherever I understand him (for I confess I do not 

* everywhere), 



A MODERN CONVERSATION. i6i 

* everywhere), I prefer him to all the ancient philoso- 

* phers. His Symposion more particularly engages 

* and entertains me, as I see there the manners and 

* characters of the most eminent men, of the politest 

* times of the politest city of Greece. And, with all 

* due respect to the moderns, I much question whether 

* an account of a modern Symposion, though written 

* hy the ablest hand, could be read with so much 

* pleasure and improvement.' — ' I do not know that,* 
replied my friend ; ' for though I revere the ancients 

* as much as you possibly can, and look upon the 

* moderns as pigmies when compared to those giants, 

* yet if we come up to, or near them in anything, it 

* is in the elegancy and deHcacy of our convivial 

* intercourse.' 

I was the more surprised at this doubt of my 
friend's, because I knew that he implicitly subscribed 
to, and superstitiously maintained, all the articles of 
the classical faith. I therefore asked him whether he 
was serious ? He answered me that he was : that in 
his mind, Plato spun out that silly affair of love too 
fine and too long ; and that if I would but let him 
introduce me to the club, of which he was an un- 
worthy member, he believed I should at least enter- 
tain the same doubt, or perhaps even decide in favour 

of 
13 



i62 A MODERN CONVERSATION. 

of the moderns. I thanked my friend for his kind- 
ness, but added, that in whatever society he was an 
unworthy member, I should be a still more unworthy 
guest. That moreover my retired and domestic turn 
of life was as inconsistent with the engagements of a 
club, as my natural taciturnity amongst strangers 
would be misplaced in the midst of all that festal 
mirth and gaiety. ' You mistake me,' answered my 
friend, ' every member of our club has the privilege of 

* bringing one friend along with him, who is by no 

* means thereby to become a member of it ; and as 
' for your taciturnity, we have some silent members, 

* who, by the way, are none of our worst. Silent 
' people never spoil company ; but, on the contrary, 

* by being good hearers, encourage good speakers.' 
— ' But I have another difficulty,' answered I, ' and 
' that I doubt a very solid one ; which is, that I 

* drink nothing but water.' — ' So much the worse for 

* you,' replied my friend, who, by the by, loves his 
bottle most academically ; ' you will pay for the claret 

* you do not drink. We use no compulsion ; every 

* one drinks as little as he pleases.' — ' Which I pre- 

* sume,' interrupted I, ' is as much as he can.' — 
That is just as it happens,' said he ; ' sometimes, it 

' is true, w^e make pretty good sittings ; but for my 

' own 



A MODERN CONVERSATION. 163 

' own part, I choose to go home always before 
' eleven : for, take my word for it, it is the sitting 

* up late, and not the drink, that destroys the consti- 
' tution.' As I found that my friend would have 
taken a refusal ill, I told him, that for this once I 
would certainly attend him to the club ; but desired 
him to give me previously the outlines of the charac- 
ters of the sitting members, that I might know how 
to behave myself properly. ' Your precaution,' said 
he, ' is a prudent one, and I will make you so well 
' acquainted with them beforehand that you shall not 
' seem a stranger when among them. You must 
' know, then, that our club consists of at least forty 
' members when complete. Of these, many are now 
' in the country ; and besides, we have some vacancies 
' which cannot be filled up till next winter. Palsies 
' and apoplexies have of late, I don't know why, been 
' pretty rife among us, and carried ofi a good many. 
' It is not above a week ago that poor Tom Toastwell 

* fell on a sudden under the table, as we thought 
' only a little in drink, but he was carried home, and 

* never spoke more. Those w^hom you will probably 

* meet with to-day are, first of all, Lord Feeble, a 
' nobleman of admirable sense, a true fine gentleman, 

* and for a man of quality, a pretty classic. He has 

' lived 



i64 A MODERN CONVERSATION. 

* lived rather fast formerly, and impaired his constitu- 
' tion by sitting up late, and drinking your thin sharp 
' winas. He is still what you call nervous, which 

* makes him a little low-spirited and reserved at first ; 

* but he grows very afFable and cheerful as soon as he 
' has warmed his stomach with about a bottle of good 

* claret. 

* Sir Tunbelly Guzzle is a very worthy north- 
' country baronet, of a good estate, and one who was 
' beforehand in the world, till being twice chosen 
' knight of the shire, and having in consequence got 
' a pretty employment at court, he ran out consider- 
' ably. He has left off housekeeping, and is now 

* upon a retrieving scheme. He is the heartiest, 
' honestest fellow living, and though he is a man of 
' very few words, I can assure you he does not want 

* sense. He had an university education, and has a 

* good notion of the classics. The poor man is con- 

* fined half the year at least with the gout, and has 
' besides an inveterate scurvy, which I cannot account 

* for : no man can live more regularly ; he eats no- 

* thing but plain meat, and very little of that ; he 

* drinks no thin wines ; and never sits up late, for he 

* has his full dose by eleven. 

• Colonel Culverin is a brave old experienced officer, 

' though 



A MODERN CONVERSATION. 165 

* though but a lieutenant-colonel of foot. Between 

* you and me, he has had great injustice done him ; 

* and is now commanded by many who were not born 

* when he came first into the army. He has served 
' in Ireland, Minorca, and Gibraltar ; and would have 

* been in all the late battles in Flanders, had the regi- 

* ment been ordered there. It is a pleasure to hear 

* him talk of war. He is the best-natured man alive, 

* but a little too jealous of his honour, and too apt to 

* be in a passion ; but that is soon over, and then he 

* is sorry for it. I fear he is dropsical, which I im- 

* pute to his drinking your Champagnes and Burgun- 

* dies. He got that ill habit abroad. 

' Sir George Plyant is well born, has a genteel for- 

* tune, keeps the very best Company, and is to be sure 
' one of the best-bred men alive : he is so good-natured, 

* that he seems to have no will of his own. He will 

* drink as little or as much as you please, and no 
' matter of what. He has been a mighty man with 
' the ladies formerly, and loves the crack of the whip 

* still. He is our news-monger ; for, being a member 

* of the privy chamber, he goes to court every day, 

* and consequently knows pretty well what is going 
' forward there. Poor gentleman ! I fear we shall 
' not keep him long, for he seems far gone in a con^ 

' sumption, 



i66 A MODERN CONVERSATION. 

* sumption, though the doctors say it is only a nervous 

* atrophy. 

* Will Sitfast is the best-natured fellow living, and 

* an excellent companion, though he seldom speaks ; 

* but he is no flincher, and sits every man's hand out 

* at the club. He is a very good scholar, and can 
' write very pretty Latin verses. I doubt he is in a 

* declining way ; for a paralytical stroke has lately 
' twitched up one side of his mouth so, that he is now 

* obliged to take his wine diagonally. However, he 

* keeps up his spirits bravely, and never shams his 

* glass. 

' Doctor Carbuncle is an honest, jolly, merry par- 

* son, well affected to the government, and much of a 
' gentleman. He is the life of our club, instead of 

* being the least restraint upon it. He is an admirable 
' scholar, and I really believe has all Horace by heart; 
' I know he has him always in his pocket. His red 

* face, inflamed nose, and swelled legs, make him 

* generally thought a hard drinker by those who do 
' not know him ; but I must do him the justice to 
' say, that I never saw him disguised with liquor in 

* my life. It is true, he is a very large man, and 

* can hold a great deal, which makes the colonel call 

* him, pleasantly enough, a vessel of election. 

'The 



A MODERN CONVERSATION. 167 

* The last and least,' concluded my friend, ' is your 
' humble servant, such as I am ; and if you please, 
* we will go and walk in the park till dinner time.' 
I agreed, and we set out together. But here the 
reader will perhaps expect that I should let him walk 
on a little, while I give his character. We were of 
the same year of St. John's College in Cambridge: 
he was a younger brother of a good family, was bred 
to the church, and had just got a fellowship in the 
college, when, his elder brother dying, he succeeded 
to an easy fortune, and resolved to make himself easy 
with it, that is, to do nothing. As he had resided 
long in college, he had contracted all the habits, pre- 
judices, the laziness, the soaking, the pride, and the 
pedantry of the cloister, which after a certain time are 
never to be rubbed off. He considered the critical 
knowledge of the Greek and Latin words, as the 
utmost effort of the human understanding, and a glass 
of good wine in good company, as the high&st pitch 
of human felicity. Accordingly, he passes his morn- 
ings in reading the classics, most of which he has 
long had by heart ; and his evenings in drinking his 
glass of good wine, which by frequent filling, amounts 
at least to two, and often to three bottles a-day. I 
must not omit mentioning that my friend is tor- 
mented 



i68 A MODERN CONVERSATION. 

mented with the stone, which misfortune he imputes 
to having once drank water for a month, by the pre- 
scription of the late Doctor Cheyne, and by no means 
to at least two quarts of claret a-day, for these last 
thirty years. To return to my friend — ' I am very 
' much mistaken,' said he, as we were walking in the 
park, * if you do not thank me for procuring this day's 

* entertainment : for a set of worthier gentlemen to be 
' sure never lived.' — * I make no doubt of it,' said I, 

* and am therefore the more concerned when I reflect, 
' that this club of worthy gentlemen might, by your 
' own account, be not improperly called an hospital 

* of incurables, as there is not one among them who 

* does not labour under some chronical and mortal 

* distemper.' — ' I see what you would be at,' answered 
my friend ; ' you would insinuate that it is all owing 

* to wine ; but let me assure you, Mr. Fitz-Adam, 

* that wine, especially claret, if neat and good, can hurt 
' no man.' I did not reply to this aphorism of my 
friend's, which I knew would draw on too long a dis- 
cussion, especially as we were just going into the club- 
room, where I took it for granted, that it was one of 
the great constitutional principles. The account of 
this modern Symposion shall be the subject of my 
next paper. 

[September 19, 1754.] A 



World] N^ 24 [Ci 



HESTERFIELD 



A MODERN CONVERSATION 

— Continued. 



\lmplentur veteris Bacchi. 

— ViRG.] 



MY friend presented me to the company, in 
what he thought the most obhging manner ; 
but which I coufcGS put me a little out of coun- 
tenance. ' Give me leave, gentlemen,' said he, * to 
* present to you my old friend, Mr. Fitz-Adam, the 
' ingenious author of the World.' The word Author 
instantly excited the attention of the whole company, 
and drew all their eyes upon me : for people who are 
not apt to write themselves have a strange curiosity to 
see a Live Author. The gentlemen received me in 
common with those gestures that intimate welcome ; 
and I on my part respectfully muttered some of those 

nothings, 



170 A MODERN CONVERSATION. 

nothings, which stand instead of the something one 
should say, and perhaps do full as well. 

The weather being hot, the gentlemen were re- 
freshing themselves before dinner with what they 
called a cool tankard; in which they successively 
drank to Me. When it came to my turn, I thought 
I could not decently decline drinking the gentlemen's 
healths, which I did aggregately : but how was I sur- 
prised, when, upon the first taste, I discovered that 
this cooling and refreshing draught was composed of 
the strongest mountain wine, lowered indeed with a 
very little lemon and water, but then heightened again 
by a quantity of those comfortable aromatics, nutmeg 
and ginger ! Dinner, which had been called for more 
than once with some impatience, was at last brought 
up, upon the colonel's threatening perdition to the 
master and all the waiters of the house, if it was 
delayed two minutes longer. We sat down without 
ceremony ; and we were no sooner sat down, than 
everybody (except myself) drank everybody's health, 
which made n tumultuous kind of noise. I observed, 
with surprise, that the common quantity of wine was 
put into glasses of an immense size and weight ; but 
my surprise ceased, when I saw the tremulous hands 
that took them, and for which I supposed they were 

intended 



A MODERN CONVERSATION. 171 

intended as ballast. But even this precaution did not 
protect the nose of Dr. Carbuncle from a severe shock, 
in his attempt to hit his mouth. The colonel, who 
observed this accident, cried out pleasantly — ' Why, 
' Doctor, I find you are but a bad engineer. While 

* you aim at your mouth, you will never hit it, take 

* my word for it. A floating battery, to hit the mark, 

* must be pointed something above, or below it. If 
' you would hit your mouth, direct your four-pounder 

* at your forehead, or your chin.' The doctor good- 
humouredly thanked the colonel for the hint, and 
promised him to communicate it to his friends at 
Oxford, where he owned that he had seen many a 
good glass of port spilt for want of it. Sir Tunbelly 
almost smiled. Sir George laughed, and the whole 
company, somehow or other, applauded this elegant 
piece of raillery. But, alas ! things soon took a less 
pleasant turn ; for an enormous buttock of boiled salt 
beef, which had succeeded the soup, proved not to be 
sufficiently corned for Sir Tunbelly, who had bespoke 
it ; and, at the same time. Lord Feeble took a dislike 
to the claret, which he affirmed not to be the same, 
which they had drank the day before ; it had no silJu- 
ness, went rough off the tongue, and his lordship shrewd- 
ly suspected that it was mixed with Benccarlo, or some 

of 



172 A MODERN CONVERSATION. 

of those black wines. This was a common cause, and 
excited universal attention. The whole company 
tasted it seriously, and every one found a different 
fault with it. The master of the house was imme- 
diately sent for up, examined, and treated as a criminal. 
Sir Tunbelly reproached him with the freshness of the 
beef, while, at the same time, all the others fell upon 
him for the badness of his wine, telling him, that it 
was not fit usage for such good customers as they 
were ; and, in fine, threatening him with a migra- 
tion of the club to some other house. The criminal 
laid the blame of the beef's not being corned enough 
upon his cook, whom he promised to turn away ; and 
attested heaven and earth that the wine was the very 
same which they had all approved of the day before ; 
and, as he had a soul to be saved, was true Chateau 
Margaux — ' Chateau devil,' said the Colonel with 
warmth, ' it is your rough Chaos wine.' Will Sitfast, 
who thought himself obliged to articulate upon this 
occasion, said. He was not sure it was a mixed 
wine, but that indeed it drank down. — ' If that is all,' 
interrupted the doctor, * let us e'en drink it tip then. 
' Or, if that won't do, since we cannot have the true 
' Falernum, let us take up for once with the vile 
* Sabinum. — What say you, gentlemen, to good 

' honest 



A MODERN CONVERSATION. 173 

* honest Port, which I am convinced is a much whole- 
' somer stomach 'wine?' My friend, who in his 
heart loves Port better than any other wine in the 
world, willingly seconded the doctor's motion, and 
spoke very favourably of your Portingal wines in 
general, if neat. Upon this some was immediately 
brought up, which I observed my friend and the 
doctor stuck to the whole evening. I could not help 
asking the doctor if he really preferred Port to hghter 
wines ? To which he answered — ' You know, Mr. 

* Fitz-Adam, that use is second nature ; and Port is, 
' in a manner, mother's milk to me ; for it is what 

* my Alma Mater suckles all her numerous progeny 

* with.' I silently assented to the doctor's account, 
■which I was convinced was a true one, and then 
attended to the judicious animadversions of the other 
gentlemen upon the claret, which were still con- 
tinued, though at the same time they continued to 
drink it. I hinted my surprise at this to Sir Tun- 
belly, who gravely answered me, and in a moving way 
— ' Why, what can we do ? ' — ' Not drink it,' replied I, 

* since it is not good.' — ' But what will you have us 
' do ? and how shall we pass the evening? ' rejoined 
the baronet. ' One cannot go home at five o'clock.' 
— ' That depends upon a great deal of use,' said I. 

'It 



^., 



174 A MODERN CONVERSATION. 

* It may be so, to a certain degree,' said the doctor. 

* But give me leave to ask you, Mr. Fitz-Adam, you, 

* who drink nothing but water, and live much at 
' home, how do you keep up your spirits ? ' — * Why, 

* Doctor,' said I, ' as I never lowered my spirits by 

* strong liquor, I do not want to raise them.' Here 
we were interrupted by the colonel's raising his voice 
and indignation against the Burgundy and Cham- 
pagne ; swearing that the former was ropy, and the 
latter upon the fret, and not without some suspicion 
of cider and sugar-candy ; notwithstanding which, he 
drank, in a bumper of it, confusion to the town of 
Bristol and the Bottle-act. It was a shame, he said, 
that gentlemen could have no good Burgundies and 
Champagnes, for the sake of some increase of the 
revenue, the manufacture of glass bottles, and such 
sort of stuff. Sir George confirmed the same, adding, 
that it was scandalous; and the whole company agreed, 
that the new parliament would certainly repeal so ab- 
surd an act the very first session ; but if they did not, 
they hoped they would receive instructions to that 
purpose from their constituents. — * To be sure,' said 
the colonel, ' what a rout they made about the repeal 

* of the Jew-bill, for which nobody cared one farthing 1 
' But, by the way,' continued he, ' I think everybody 

' has 



A MODERN CONVERSATION. 17$ 

* has done eating, and therefore had not we better 

* have the dinner taken away, and the wine set upon 

* the table ? ' To this the company gave an unani- 
mous * Aye ! ' While this was doing, I asked my 
friend, with seeming seriousness, whether no part of 
the dinner was to be served up again, when the wine 
should be set upon the table? He seemed surprised 
at my question, and asked me if I was hungry ? To 
which I answered, ' No ; ' but asked him, in my turn, 
if he was dry ? To which he also answered ' No,' — 

* Then, pray,' replied I, ' why not as well eat without 

* being hungry, as drink without being dry ? ' My 
friend was so stunned with this, that he attempted no 
reply, but stared at me with as much astonishment as 
he would have done at my great ancestor Adam in his 
primitive state of nature. 

The cloth was now taken away, and the bottles, 
glasses, and dish-clouts, put upon the table ; when 
Will Sitfast, who I found was a perpetual toast-maker, 
took the chair, of course, as the man of application to 
business. He began the king's health in a bumper, 
w^hich circulated in the same manner, not without 
some nice examinations of the chairman as to day-light. 
The bottle standing by me, I was called upon by the 
chairman ; who added, that though a water-drinker, 

he 



176 A MODERN CONVERSATION. 

he hoped I would not refuse that heahh in wine : I 
begged to be excused, and told him, that I never 
drank his majesty's health at all, though no one of 
his subjects wished it more heartily than I did. That 
hitherto it had not appeared to me, that there could 
be the least relation between the wine I drank and 
the king's state of health ; and that, till I was con- 
vinced that impairing my own health would improve 
his majesty's, I was resolved to preserve the use of my 
faculties and my limbs, to employ both in his service, 
if he could ever have occasion for them. I had fore- 
seen the consequences of this refusal ; and though my 
friend had answered for my principles, I easily dis- 
covered an air of suspicion in the countenances of the 
company ; and I overheard the colonel whisper to 
Lord Feeble — ' This author is a very old dog.* 

My friend was ashamed of me ; but, however, to 
help me off as well as he could, he said to me aloud — 

* Mr. Fitz-Adam, this is one of those singularities 

* which you have contracted by living so much alone.* 
From this moment the company gave me up to my 
oddnesses, and took no further notice of me. I leaned 
silently upon the table, waiting for (though, to say 
the truth, without expecting) some of that festal 
gaiety, that urbanity, and that elegant mirth, of 

which 



A MODERN CONVERSATION. 177 

which my friend had promised so large a share. In- 
stead of all which, the conversation ran chiefly into 
narrative, and grew duller and duller with every 
bottle. Lord Feeble recounted his former achieve- 
ments in love and wine; the colonel complained, 
though with dignity, of hardships and injustice ; Sir 
George hinted at some important discoveries which 
he had made that day at court, but cautiously avoided 
naming names ; Sir Tunbelly slept between glass 
and glass ; the doctor and my friend talked over 
college matters, and quoted Latin ; and our worthy 
president applied himself wholly to business, never 
speaking but to order ; . as — ' Sir, the bottle stands 

* with you — Sir, you are to name a toast — That has 

* been drank already — Here, more claret ! ' &c. In 
the height of all this convivial pleasantry, which I 
plainly saw was come to its zenith, I stole away at 
about nine o'clock, and went home ; where reflections 
upon the entertainment of the day crowded into my 
mind, and may perhaps be the subject of some future 
paper. 

[September 26, 17S4.] 



THE 
14 



Connoisseur] -N 35 [Colman and 

Thornton 

THE SQUIRE IN ORDERS. 



Gaudet equis canibusque, et aprici gramine campi. 

— HOR. 



1\ yr Y Cousin Village, from whom I had not heard 
^^ ^ for some time, has lately sent me an account 
of a Country Parson, which I daresay will prove enter- 
taining to my town readers, who can have no other 
idea of our clergy than what they have collected from 
the spruce and genteel figures which they have been 
used to contemplate here in doctors* scarfs, pudding- 
sleeves, starched bands, and feather-top grizzles. It 
will be found from my cousins' description, that these 
reverend ensigns of orthodoxy are not so necessary to 
be displayed among the rustics ; and that, when they 
are out of the pulpit or surplice, the good pastors may, 
without censure, put on the manners as well as dress 
of a groom or whipper-in. 

DONC ASTER, 



179 

DoNCASTER, Jan. 14, 1756. 

Dear Cousin, 
T AM just arrived here, after having paid a visit to 
our old acquaintance Jack Quickset, who is now 

become the Reverend Mr. Quickset, rector of 

parish in the North-Riding of this county, a living 
worth upwards of three hundred pounds per ami. As 
the ceremonies of ordination have occasioned no altera- 
tion in Jack's morals or behaviour, the figure he makes 
in the church is somewhat remarkable : but as there 
are many other incumbents of country livings, whose 
clerical characters will be found to tally with his, 
perhaps a slight sketch, or, as I may say, rough 
draught of him, with some account of my visit, will 
not be unentertaining to your readers. 

Jack, hearing that I was in this part of the world, 
sent me a very hearty letter, informing me that he 
had been double japanned (as he called it) about a year 

ago, and was the present incumbent of ; where, 

if I would favour him with my company, he would 
give me a cup of the best Yorkshire Stingo, and would 
engage to shew me a noble day's sport, as he was in a 
fine open country with plenty of foxes. I rejoiced to 
hear he was so comfortably settled, and set out imme- 
diately for his living. When I arrived within the 

gate. 



THE SQUIRE IN ORDERS. * 



gate, my ears were alarmed with such a loud chorus 
of ' No mortals on earth are so jovial as we,' that I 
began to think I had made a mistake ; but its close 
neighbourhood to the church soon convinced me that 
this could be no other than the Parsonage-house. 
Oil my entrance, my friend (whom I found in the 
midst of a room-full of fox-hunters in boots and bob- 
wigs) got up to welcome me to , and embracing 

me, gave me the full flavour of his Stingo by breathing 
in my face, as he did me the honour of saluting me. 
He then introduced me to his friends ; and placing me 
at the right hand of his own elbow chair, assured them 
that I was a very honest Cock, and loved a chase of five- 
and-twenty miles on end as well as any of them : to 
preserve the credit of which character, I was obliged 
to comply with an injunction to toss off a pint bumper 
of Port, with the foot of the fox dipped and squeezed 
into it to give a zest to the liquor. 

The whole economy of Jack's life is very different 
from that of his brethren. Instead of having a wife 
and a house-full of children (the most common family 
of a country clergyman), he is single ; unless we credit 
some idle whispers in the parish that he is married to 
his housekeeper. The calm amusements of piquet, 
chess, and backgammon, have no charms for Jack, 

who 



THE SQUIRE IN ORDERS. iSi 

who ' sees his dearest action in the field,' and boasts 
that he has a brace of as good hunters in his stable as 
ever leg was laid over. Hunting and shooting are 
the only business of his life ; fox-hounds and pointers 
lay about in every parlour ; and he is himself, like 
Pistol, always in boots. The estimation in which he 
holds his friends is rated according to their excellence 
as sportsmen ; and to be able to make a good shot, or 
hunt a pack of hounds well, are most recommending 
qualities. His parishioners often earn a shilling and 
a cup of ale at his house, by coming to acquaint him 
that they have found a hare sitting, or a fox in cover. 
One day, when I was alone with my friend, the ser- 
vant came in to tell him that the clerk wanted to 
speak with him. He was ordered in ; but I could 
not help smiling, when (instead of giving notice of a 
burying, christening, or some other church business, 
as I expected) I found the honest clerk came only to 
acquaint his reverend superior that there was a covey 
of partridges, of a dozen brace at least, not above three 
fields from the house. 

Jack's elder brother, Sir Thomas Quickset, who 
gave him the benefice, is lord of the manor ; so that 
Jack has full power to beat up the game unmolested. 
He goes out three times a-week with his brother's 

hounds. 



i82 THE SQUIRE IN ORDERS. 

hounds, whether Sir Thomas hunts or net; and has 
besides a deputation from him as lord of the manor, 
consigning the game to his care, and empowering 
him to take away all guns, nets, and dogs, from per- 
sons not duly qualified. Jack is more proud of his 
office, than many other country clergymen are of 
being in the commission of the peace. Poaching is, 
in his eye, the most heinous crime in the two tables; 
nor does the care of souls appear to him half so im- 
portant a duty as the preservation of the game. 

Sunday, you may suppose, is as dull and tedious to 
this ordained sportsman as to any fine lady in town : 
not that he makes the duties of his function any 
fatigue to, him, but as this day is necessarily a day 
of rest from the usual toils of shooting and the chase. 
It happened that the first Sunday after I was with 
him, he had engaged to take care of a church, which 
was about twenty miles off, in the absence of a 
neighbouring clergyman. He asked me to accompany 
him ; and the more to encourage me, he assured me 
that we should ride "over as fine a champaign open 
country as any in the North. Accordingly I was 
roused by him in the morning before day-break, by a 
loud hallooing of ' Hark to Merriman 1 ' and the re- 
peated smacks of his half-hunter; and after we had 

fortifie(f 



THE SQUIRE IN ORDlzRS. 183 

fortified our stomachs with several slices of hung beef, 
and a horn or two of Stingo, we sallied forth. Jack 
was mounted upon a hunter which he assured me 
Avas never yet thrown out : and as we rode along, he 
could not help lamenting that so fine a soft morning 
should be thrown away upon a Sunday ; at the same 
time remarking that the dogs might run breast high. 
Though we made the best of our way over hedge 
and ditch, and took everything, we were often delayed 
by trying if we could prick a hare, or by leaving the 
road to examine a piece of cover ; and he frequently 
made me stop while he pointed out the particular 
course that Reynard took, or the spot where he had 
earth'd. At length we arrived on full gallop at the 
church, where we found the congregation waiting for 
us ; but as Jack had nothing to do but to alight, pull 
his band out of the sermon-case, give his brown 
scratch bob a shake, and clap on the surplice, he was 
presently equipped for the service. In short, he be- 
haved himself, both in the desk and pulpit, to the 
entire satisfaction of all the parish, as well as the 
squire of it, who, after thanking Jack for his excellent 
discourse, very cordially took us home to dinner with 
him. 

I shall not trouble you with an account of our 
* entertainment 



i84 THE SQUIRE IN ORDERS. 

entertainment at the squire's ; who, being himself as 
keen a sportsman as ever followed a pack of dogs, was 
hugely delighted with Jack's conversation. ' Church 
' and King,' and another particular toast (in compli- 
ment, I suppose, to my friend's clerical character) 
were the first drank after dinner ; but these were 
directly followed by a pint bumper to ' Horses sound, 
' Dogs healthy. Earths stopt, and Foxes plenty.' 
When we had run over again, with great joy and 
vociferation, as many chases as the time would per- 
mit, the bell called us to evening prayers ; after 
which, though the squire w^ould fain have had us 
stay and take a hunt with him, we mounted our 
horses at the church door, and rode home in the 
dark; because Jack had engaged to meet several of 
his brother sportsmen, who were to lie all night at 
his own house, to be in readiness, to make up for the 
loss of Sunday, by going out a-cock-shooting very 
early the next morning. 

I must leave it to you. Cousin, to make what 
reflections you please on this character : only ob- 
serving, that the country can furnish many instances 
of these ordained sportsmen, whose thoughts are 
more taken upVith the stable or the dog-kennel, 
than the church ; and indeed, it. will be found that 

our 



THE SQUIRE IN ORDERS. 185 

our friend Jack anci all of his stamp are regarded by 
their parishioners, not as Parsons of the Parish, but 
rather as Squires in Orders. 

I am, dear Cousin, yours, &c. 

[January 29, 1756.] 



COUNTRY 



Connoisseur] iSi 2,6 [Cowper 

COUNTRY CONGREGATIONS. 



Delicta majorutn immeritus lues, 
Romane, donee templa refeceris 
jEdcsque labentes deorum, et 
Foeda nigra simulacra fumo. 

KOR. 



Dear Cousin, 

THE country at present, no less than the metro- 
polis, abounding with politicians of every kind, 
I begun to despair of picking up any intelligence that 
might possibly be entertaining to your readers. How- 
ever, I have lately visited some of the most distant 
parts of the kingdom with a clergyman of my acquaint- 
ance : I shall not trouble you with an account of the 
improvements that have been made in the seats we 
saw according to the modern taste, but proceed to give 
you some reflections, which occurred to us on observ- 



i 



COUNTRY CONGREGATIONS. 187 

ing several country churches, and the behaviour of 
the congregations. 

The ruinous condition of some of these edifices 
gave me great offence ; and I could not help wishing, 
that the honest vicar, instead of indulging his genius 
for improvements, by inclosing his gooseberry bushes 
within a Chinese rail, and converting half-an-acre of 
his glebe-land into a bowling-green, would have applied 
part of his income to the more laudable purpose of 
sheltering his parishioners from the weather, during 
their attendance on divine service. It is no uncom- 
mon thing to see the parsonage-house well-thatched, 
and in exceeding good repair, while the church per- 
haps has scarce any other roof than the ivy that grows 
over it. The noise of owls, bats, and magpies, makes 
the principal part of the church-music in many of 
these ancient edifices ; and the walls, like a large map, 
seem to be portioned out into capes, seas, and pro- 
montories, by the various colours by which the damps 
have stained them. Sometimes, the foundation being 
too weak to support the steeple any longer, it has been 
expedient to pull down that part of the building, and 
to hang the bells under a wooden shed on the ground 
1 beside it. This is the case in a parish in Norfolk, 
through which I lately passed, and where the clerk 

and 



i88 COUNTRY CONGREGATIONS. 

and the sexton, like the two figures at St. Dunstan's, 
serve the bells in capacity of clappers, by striking 
them alternately with a hammer. 

In other churches I have observed, that nothing 
unseemly or ruinous is to be found, except in the 
clergyman, and the appendages of his person. The 
squire of the parish, or his ancestors, perhaps, to 
testify their devotion, and leave a lasting monument 
of their magnificence, have adorned the altar-piece 
with the richest crimson velvet, embroidered with 
vine-leaves and ears of wheat ; and have dressed up 
the pulpit with the same splendour and expense; 
while the gentleman, who fills it, is exalted in the 
midst of all this finery, with a surplice as dirty as a 
farmer's frock, and a periwig that seems to have trans- 
ferred its faculty of curling to the band which appears 
in full buckle beneath it. 

But if I was concerned to see several distressed 
pastors, as well as many of our country churches in a 
tottering condition, I was more offended with the 
indecency of worship in others. I could wish that 
the clergy would inform their congregations, that 
there is no occasion to scream themselves hoarse in 
making the responses ; that the town-crier is not the 
only person qualified to pray with due devotion ; and 

th-.t 



COUNTRY CONGREGATIONS. 189 

that he who bawls the loudest may, nevertheless, be 
the wickedest fellow in the parish. The old women 
too in the aisle might be told, that their time would 
be better employed in attending to the sermon, than 
in fumbling over their tattered testaments till they 
have found the text ; by which time the discourse is 
near drawing to a conclusion : while a word or two of 
instruction might not be thrown away upon the 
younger part of the congregation, to teach them that 
making posies in summer time, and cracking nuts in 
autumn, is no part of the religious ceremony. 

The good old practice of psalm-singing is, indeed, 
wonderfully improved in many country churches since 
the days of Sternhold and Hopkins ; and there is scarce 
a parish-clerk, who has so little taste as not to pick 
his staves out of the New Version. This has occa- 
sioned great complaints in some places, where the 
clerk has been forced to bawl by himself, because the 
rest of the congregation cannot find the psalm at the 
end of their prayer-books ; while others are highly 
disgusted at the innovation, and stick as obstinately 
to the Old Version as to the Old Style. The tunes 
themselves have also been new-set to jiggish measures ; 
and the sober drawl, which used to accompany the 
two first staves of the hundredth psalm, with the 

ploria 



I90 COUNTRY CONGREGATIONS. 

gloria patri, is now split into as many quavers as an 
Italian air. For this purpose there is in every county 
an itinerant band of vocal musicians, who make it 
their business to go round to all the churches in their 
turns, and, after a prelude with the pitch-pipe, astonish 
the audience with hymns set to the new "Winchester 
measure, and anthems of their own composing. As 
these new-fashioned psalmodists are necessarily made 
up of young men and maids, we may naturally sup- 
pose, that there is a perfect concord and symphony 
between them : and, indeed, I have known it happen 
that these sweet singers have more than once been 
brought into disgrace, by too close an unison be- 
tween the thorough-bass and the treble. 

It is a difficult matter to decide, which is looked 
upon as the greatest man in a country church, the 
parson or his clerk. The latter is most certainly 
held in higher veneration, where the former happens 
to be only a poor curate, who rides post every Sab- 
bath from village to village, and mounts and dis- 
mounts at the church door. The clerk's office is not 
only to tag the prayers with an Amen, or usher in 
the sermon with a stave ; but he is also the universal 
father to give away the brides, and the standing god- 
father to all the new-born bantlings. But in many 

places 



COIJ^TRY CONGREGATIONS. 191 

places there is a still greater man belonging to the 
church, than either the parson or the clerk himself. 
The person I mean is the Squire ; who, like the King, 
may be styled Head of the Church in his own parish. 
If the benefice be in his own gift, the vicar is his 
creature, and of consequence entirely at his devo- 
tion : or, if the care of the church be left to a curate, 
the Sunday fees of roast beef and plum pudding, and 
a liberty to shoot in the manor, wull bring him as 
much under the Squire's command as his dogs and 
horses. For this reason the bell is often kept tolling, 
and the people waiting in the church-yard an hour 
longer than the usual time ; nor must the service 
begin till the Squire has strutted up the aisle, and 
seated himself in the great pew in the chancel. The 
length of the sermon is also measured by the will 
of the Squire, as formerly by the hour-glass : and I 
know one parish where the preacher has always 
the complaisance to conclude his discourse, however 
abruptly, the minute that the Squire gives the signal, 
by rising up after his nap. 

In a village church, the Squire's lady or the vicar's 
wife are perhaps the only females that are stared at 
for their finery : but in the larger cities and towns, 
where the newest fashions are brought down weekly 

by 



192 COUNTRY CONGREGATIONS. 

by the stage-coach or waggon, all the wives and 
daughters of the most topping tradesmen vie with 
each other every Sunday in the elegance of their 
apparel. I could even trace their gradations in their 
dress, according to the opulence, the extent, and the 
distance of the place from London. I was at church 
in a populous city in the North, where the mace-bearer 
cleared the way for Mrs. Mayoress, who came sidling 
after him in an enormous fan-hoop, of a pattern which 
had never been seen before in those parts. At another 
church, in a corporation town, I saw several Negli- 
gees, with furbellowed aprons, which had long dis- 
puted the prize of superiority : but these were most 
wofully eclipsed by a burgess's daughter, just come 
from London, who appeared in a Trollope or Slam- 
merkin, with treble ruffles to the cuffs, pinked and 
gimped, and the sides of the petticoat drawn up in 
festoons. In some lesser borough towns, the contest, 
I found, lay between three or four black and green 
bibs and aprons ; at one, a grocer's wife attracted our 
eyes, by a new-fashioned cap, called a Joan ; and, at 
another, they were wholly taken up by a mercer's 
daughter in a Nun's Hood. 

I need not say anything of the behaviour of the 
congregations in these more polite places of religious 

resort ; 



COUNTRY CONGREGATIONS. 



195 



resort ; as the same genteel ceremonies are practised 
there, as at the most fashionable churches in town. 
. The ladies, immediately on their entrance, breathe a 
pious ejaculation through their fan-sticks, arid the 
beaux very gravely address themselves to the Haber- 
dashers' Bills, glued upon the linings of their hats. 
This pious duty is no sooner performed, than the 
exercise of bowing and curtsying succeeds ; the lock- 
ing and unlocking of the pews drowns the reader's 
voice at the beginning of the service ; and the rustling 
of silks, added to the whispering and tittering of so 
much good company, renders him totally unintelli- 
gible to the very end of it. 

I am, dear Cousin, yours, &c. 

[August 19, 1756.] 



THE 



Idler] N^ %"] [Johnson 

DICK MINIM THE CRITIC. 



[Intcr-strepit anser olores. 
— ViRG.] 



CRITICISM is a study by which men grow im- 
portant and formidable at very small expense. 
The power of invention has been conferred by Nature 
upon few, and the labour of learning those sciences 
which may, by mere labour, be obtained, is too great 
to be willingly endured ; but every man can exert 
such judgment as he has upon the works of others : 
and he whom Nature has made weak, and Idleness 
keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the 
name of a Critic. 

I hope it will give comfort to great numbers who 
are passing through the world in obscurity, when I 
inform them how easily distinction may be obtained. 
All the other powers of literature are coy and 

haughty 



DICK MINIM THE CRITIC. 195 

haughty ; they must be long courted, and at last are 
not always gained : but Criticism is a goddess easy of 
access, and forward of advance, who will meet the 
slow, and encourage the timorous ; the want of 
meaning she supplies with words, and the want of 
spirit she recompenses with malignity. 

This profession has one recommendation peculiar to 
itself, that it gives vent to malignity without real 
mischief. No genius was ever blasted by the breath 
of critics. The poison which, if confined, would 
have burst the heart, fumes away in empty hisses, 
and malice is set at ease with very little danger to 
merit. The critic is the only man whose triumph is 
without another's pain, and whose greatness does not 
rise upon another's ruin. 

To a study at once so easy and so reputable, so 
malicious and so harmless, it cannot be necessary to 
invite my readers by a long or laboured exhortation ; 
it is sufficient, since all would be critics if they could, 
to shew by one eminent example, that all can be 
critics if they will. 

Dick Minim, after the common course of puerile 
studies, in which he was no great proficient, was put 
apprentice to a brewer, with whom he had lived two 
years, when his uncle died in the city, and left him a 

large 



196 DICK MINIM THE CRITIC. 

large fortune in the stocks. Dick had for six months 
before used the company of the lower players, of 
whom he had learned to scorn a trade ; and being now 
at liberty to follow his genius, he resolved to be a 
man of wit and humour. That he might be properly 
initiated in his new character, he frequented the 
coffee-houses near the theatres, where he listened very 
diligently, day after day, to those who talked of lan- 
guage and sentiments, and unities and catastrophes, 
till, by slow degrees, he began to think that he under- 
stood something of the stage, and hoped in time to 
talk himself. 

But he did not trust so much to natural sagacity, 
as wholly to neglect the help of books. When the 
theatres were shut, he retired to Richmond with a 
few select writers, whose opinions he impressed upon 
his memory by unwearied diligence ; and when he 
returned with other wits to the town, was able to tell 
in very proper phrases, that the chief business of art 
is to copy nature ; that a perfect writer is not to 
be expected, because genius decays as judgment in- 
creases ; that the great art is the art of blotting ; and 
that, according to the rule of Horace, every piece 
should be kept nine years. 

Of the great authors he now began to display the 
characters, 



DICK MINIM THE CRITIC. 



197 



characters, laying down, as an universal position, that 
all had beauties and defects. His opinion was, that 
Shakespeare, committing himself wholly to the impulse 
of nature, wanted that correctness which learning 
would have given him ; and that Jonson, trusting to 
learning, did not sufficiently cast his eye on nature. 
He blamed the Stanza of Spenser, and could not bear 
the Hexameters of Sidney. Denham and Waller he 
held the first reformers of English numbers ; and 
thought that if Waller could have obtained the strength 
of Denham, or Denham the sweetness of Waller, there 
had been nothing wanting to complete a poet. He 
often expressed his commiseration of Dr^^^den's poverty, 
and his indignation at the age which suffered him to 
write for bread ; he repeated with rapture the first 
lines of All for Love, but wondered at the corruption 
of taste which could bear anything so unnatural as 
rhyming tragedies. In Otway he found uncommon 
powers of moving the passions, but was disgusted by 
his general negligence, and blamed him for making a 
conspirator his hero; and never concluded his dis- 
quisition, without remarking how happily the sound 
of the clock is made to alarm the audience. Southerne 
would have been his favourite, but that he mixes 
comic with tragic scenes, intercepts the natural course 

of 



198 DICK MINIM THE CRITIC. 

of the passions, and fills the mind with a wild con- 
fusion of mirth and melancholy. The versification 
of Rowe he thought too melodious for the stage, and 
too little varied in different passions. He made it the 
great fault of Congreve, that all his persons were 
wits, and that he always wrote with more art than 
nature. He considered Cato rather as a poem than a 
play, and allowed Addison to be the complete master 
of allegory and grave humour, but paid no great 
deference to him as a critic. He thought the chief 
merit of Prior was in his easy tales and lighter poems, 
though he allowed that his Solomon had many noble 
sentiments elegantly expressed. In Swift he disco- 
vered an inimitable vein of irony, and an easiness 
which all would hope and few would attain. Pope he 
was inclined to degrade from a poet to a versifier, and 
thought his numbers rather luscious than sweet. He 
often lamented the neglect of Phaedra and Hippolitus, 
and wished to see the stage under better regulations. 
These assertions passed commonly uncontradicted •, 
and if now and then an opponent started up, he was 
quickly repressed by the suffrages of the company, 
and Minim went away from every dispute with ela- 
tion of heart and increase of confidence. 
1 He now grew conscious of his abilities, and began 



DICK MINIM THE CRITIC. 199 

to talk of the present state of dramatic poetry ; won- 
dered what was become of the comic genius which 
supplied our ancestors with wit and pleasantry, and 
why no writer could be found that durst now venture 
beyond a farce. He saw no reason for thinking that 
the vein of humour was exhausted, since we live in a 
country where liberty suffers every character to spread 
itself to its utmost bulk, and which therefore produces 
more originals than all the rest of the world together. 
Of tragedy he concluded business to be the soul, and 
yet often hinted that love predominates too much 
upon the modern stage. 

He was now an acknowledged critic, and had his 
own seat in a coffee-house, and headed a party in the 
pit. Minim has more vanity than ill-nature, and 
seldom desires to do much mischief ; he will perhaps 
murmur a little in the ear of him that sits next him, 
but endeavours to influence the audience to favour, by 
clapping when an actor exclaims, Ye Gods ! or laments 
the misery of his country. 

By degrees he was admitted to rehearsals ; and 
many of his friends are of opinion, that our present 
poets are indebted to him for their happiest thoughts ; 
by his contrivance the bell was rung twice in Bar- 
barossa; and by his persuasion the author of Cleone 

concluded 



200 DICK MINIM THE CRITIC. 

concluded his play without a couplet ; for what can 
be more absurd, said Minim, than that part of a play 
should be rhymed, and part written in blank verse? 
and by what acquisition of faculties is the speaker, 
who never could find rhymes before, enabled to 
rhyme at the conclusion of an act? 

He is the great investigator of hidden beauties, and 
is particularly delighted when he finds the sound an 
echo to the sense. He has read all our poets with par- 
ticular attention to this delicacy of versification, and 
wonders at the supineness with which their works 
have been hitherto perused, so that no man has found 
the sound of a drum in this distich : 

' When pulpit, drum ecclesiastic, 

' Was beat with fist instead of a stick ; ' 

and that the wonderful lines upon Honour and a 
Bubble have hitherto passed without notice : 

' Honour is like the glassy bubble, 

' Which cost philosophers such trouble; 

' Where, one part crack'd, the whole does fl}', 

•And wits are crack'd to find out why.' 

In these verses, says Minim, we have two striking 
accommodations of the sound to the sense. It is im- 
possible 



DICK MINIM THE CRITIC. 201 

possible to utter the two lines emphatically without 
an act like that which they describe; Bubble and 
Trouble causing a momentary inflation of the cheeks 
by the retention of the breath, which is afterwards 
forcibly emitted, as in the practice of blowing bubbles. 
But the greatest excellence is in the third line, which 
is crack'd in the middle to express a crack, and then 
shivers into monosyllables. Yet has this diamond 
lain neglected with common stones ; and among the 
innumerable admirers of Hudibras the observation of 
this superlative passage has been reserved for the 
sagacity of Minim. 

[June^, I7S9-J 



Idler] N^ 28 



DICK MINIM THE CRITIC 

— Continued. 



[Di te, Damasippe, Deaqiie 
Verum ol consilium doncnt tonsore 1 

— HOR.] 



MR. MINIM had now advanced himself to the 
zenith of critical reputation ; when he was 
in the pit, every eye in the boxes was fixed upon him ; 
when he entered his coffee-house, he was surrounded 
by circles of candidates, who passed their novitiate of 
literature under his tuition ; his opinion was asked by 
all who had no opinion of their own, and yet loved 
to debate and decide ; and no composition was sup- 
posed to pass in safety to posterity, till it had been 
secured by Minim's approbation. 

Minim professes great admiration of the wisdom 
and munificence by which the academies of the Con- 
tinent 



DICK MINIM THE CRITIC. 203 

tinent were raised, and often wishes for some standard 
of taste, for some tribunal, to which merit may appeal 
from caprice, prejudice, and malignity. He has formed 
a plan for an Academy of Criticism, where every work 
of imagination may be read before it is printed, and 
which shall authoritatively direct the theatres what 
pieces to receive or reject, to" exclude or to revive. 

Such an institution would, in Dick's opinion, 
spread the fame of English literature over Europe, 
and make London the metropolis of elegance and 
politeness, the place to which the learned and ingeni- 
ous of all countries would repair for instruction and 
improvement, and where nothing would any longer 
be applauded or endured that was not conformed to 
the nicest rules, and finished with the highest elegance. 

Till some happy conjunction of the planets shall 
dispose our princes or ministers to make themselves 
immortal by such an academy. Minim contents him- 
self to preside four nights in a week in a critical society 
selected by himself, where he is heard without contra- 
diction, and whence his judgment is disseminated 
through the great vulgar and the small. 

When he is placed in the chair of criticism, he 
declares loudly for the noble simplicity of our ances- 
tors, in opposition to the petty refinements, and orna- 
mental 



204 DICK MINIM THE CRITIC. 

mental luxuriance. Sometimes lie is sunk in despair, 
and perceives false delicacy daily gaining ground ; 
and sometimes brightens his countenance with a 
gleam of hope, and predicts the revival of the true 
sublime. He then fulminates his loudest censures 
against the monkish barbarity of rhyme; wonders 
how beings that pretend to reason can be pleased 
with one line always ending like another ; tells how 
unjustly and unnaturally sense is sacrificed to sound ; 
how often the best thoughts are mangled by the 
necessity of confining or extending them to the 
dimensions of a couplet; and rejoices that genius 
has, in our days, shaken off the shackles which had 
incumbered it so long. Yet he allows that rhyme 
may sometimes be borne, if the lines be often broken, 
and the pauses judiciously diversified. 

From blank verse he makes an easy transition to 
Milton, whom he produces as an example of the slow 
advance of lasting reputation. Milton is the only 
writer in whose books Minim can read for ever with- 
out weariness. What cause it is that exempts this 
pleasure from satiety he has long and diligently en- 
quired, and believes it to consist in the perpetual 
variation of the numbers, by which the ear is gratified 
and the attention awakened. The lines that are com- 
monly 



DICK MINIM THE CRITIC. 205 

monly thought rugged and unmusical, he conceives 
to have been written to temper the melodious luxury 
of the rest, or to express things by a proper cadence : 
for he scarcely finds a verse that has not this favourite 
beauty; he declares that he could shiver in a hot- 
house, when he reads that 

* the ground 
* Burns frore, and cold perforins th' effect of fire ; ' 

and that, when Milton bewails his blindness, the verse 

' So thick a drop serene has quenched these orbs ' 

has, he knows not how, something that strikes him 
with an obscure sensation like that which he fancies 
would be felt from the sound of darkness. 

Minim is not so confident of his rules of judgment 
as not very eagerly to catch new light from the name 
of the author. He is commonly so prudent as to spare 
those whom he cannot resist, unless, as will some- 
times happen, he finds the public combined against 
them. But a fresh pretender to fame he is strongly 
inclined to censure, till his own honour requires that 
he commend him. Till he knows the success of a 
composition, he intrenches himself in general terms ; 

there 



2o6 DICK MINIM THE CRITIC. 

there are some new thoughts and beautiful passages ; 
but there is likewise much which he would have ad- 
vised the author to expunge. He has several favourite 
epithets, of which he has never settled the meaning, 
but which are very commodiously applied to books 
which he has not read, or cannot understand. One 
is manly, another is dry, another stiff, and another 
jlimsy ; sometimes he discovers delicacy of style, and 
sometimes meets with strange expressions. 

He is never so great, or so happy, as when a youth 
of promising parts is brought to receive his directions 
for the prosecution of his studies. He then puts on a 
very serious air ; he advises his pupil to read none but 
the best authors ; and, when he finds one congenial 
to his own mind, to study his beauties, but avoid his 
faults ; and, when he sits down to write, to consider 
how his favourite author would think at the present 
time on the present occasion. He exhorts him to 
catch those moments when he finds his thoughts ex- 
panded and his genius exalted ; but to take care lest 
imagination hurry him beyond the bounds of nature. 
He holds diligence the mother of success : yet enjoins 
him, with great earnestness, not to read more than he 
can digest, and not to confuse his mind by pursuing 
studies of contrary tendencies. He tells him that 

every 



DICK MINIM THE CRITIC. 207 

every man has his genius, and that Cicero could 
never be a poet. The boy retires illuminated, resolves 
to follow his genius, and to think how Milton would 
have thought : and Minim feasts upon his own bene- 
ficence till another day brings another pupil. 

[June 16, 1759.] 



ART- 



Idler] N° 29 [Reynolds 

ART -CONNOISSEURS. 



\Suhtilis veterwn judex et callidus 

— HOR.] 



Sir, 
T WAS much pleased with your ridicule of those 
-*- shallow Critics, whose judgment, though often 
right as far as it goes, yet reaches only to inferior 
beauties, and who, unable to comprehend the whole, 
judge only by parts, and from thence determine the 
merit of extensive works. But there is another kind 
of Critic still worse, who judges by narrow rules, and 
those too often false, and which, though they should 
be true, and founded on nature, will lead him but a 
very little way towards the just estimation of the 
sublime beauties in works of genius ; for whatever 
part of an art can be executed or criticised by rules, 
that part is no longer the work of genius, which im- 
plies 



ART- CONNOISSEURS. 209 

plies excellence out of the reach of rules. For my own 
part, I profess myself an Idler, and love to give my 
judgment, such as it is, from my immediate percep- 
tions, without much fatigue of thinking ; and I am 
of opinion, that if a man has not those perceptions 
right, it will be vain for him to endeavour to supply 
their place by rules, which may enable him to talk 
more learnedly, but not to distinguish more acutely. 
Another reason which has lessened my affection for 
the study of criticism is, that Critics, so far as I have 
observed, debar themselves from receiving any plea- 
sure from the polite arts, at the same time that they 
profess to love and admire them : for these rules, 
being always uppermost, give them such a propensity 
to criticise, that, instead of giving up the reins of 
their imagination into their author's hands, their 
frigid minds are employed in examining whether the 
performance be according to the rules of art. 

To those who are resolved to be Critics in spite of 
nature, and, at the same time, have no great disposi- 
tion to much reading and study, I would recommend 
to them to assume the character of Connoisseur, 
which may be purchased at a much cheaper rate than 
that of a Critic in poetry. The remembrance of a few 
names of pamters, with their general characters, with 

16 



2IO ART- CONNOISSEURS. 

a few rules of the Academy, which they may pick up 
among the painters, will go a great way towards 
making a very notable Connoisseur. 

With a gentleman of this cast, I visited last week 
the Cartoons at Hampton-Court ; he was just returned 
from Italy, a Connoisseur of course, and of course his 
mouth full of nothing but the grace of Raffaelle, the 
purity of Domenichino, the learning of Poussin, the 
air of Guido, the greatness of taste of the Caraches, 
and the sublimity and grand contorno of Michael An- 
gelo ; with all the rest of the cant of criticism, which 
he emitted with that volubility which generally those 
orators have who annex no idea to their words. 

As we were passing through the rooms, in our way 
to the gallery, I made him observe a whole length of 
Charles the First, by Vandyke, as a perfect representa- 
tion of the character as well as the figure of the man. 
He agreed it was very fine, but it wanted spirit and 
contrast, and had not the flowing line, without which 
a figure could not possibly be graceful. When we 
entered the Gallery, I thought I could perceive him 
recollecting his rules by which he was to criticise 
Raffaelle. I shall pass over his observation of the 
boats being too little, and other criticisms of that 
kind, till we arrived at 5/. Paul preaching. ' This, 

* (says 



ART- CONNOISSEURS. 211 

* (says he) is esteemed the most excellent of all the 
' Cartoons ; what nobleness, what dignity there is in 
' that figure of St, Paul 1 and yet what an addition to 

* that nobleness could Raffaelle have given, had the 

* art of contrast been known in his time 1 but, above 

* all, the flowing line, which constitutes grace and 

* beauty. You would not then have seen an upright 

* figure standing equally on both legs, and both hands 

* stretched forward in the same direction, and his 

* drapery, to all appearance, without the least art of 

* disposition.' The following picture is the Charge to 
Peter. * Here (says he) are twelve upright figures ; 

* what a pity it is that RafFaelle was not acquainted 

* with the pyramidal principle ! He would then 

* have contrived the figures in the middle to have 

* been on higher ground, or the figures at the ex- 

* tremities stooping or lying, which would not only 

* have formed the group into the shape of a pyramid, 
' but likewise contrasted the standing figures. In- 
' deed,' added he, ' I have often lamented that so 
« great a genius as RafFaelle had not lived in this 

* enlightened age, since the art has been reduced to 

* principles, and had had his education in one of the 

* modern academies ; what glorious works might we 

* then have expected from his divine pencil 1 ' 

I 



212 ART- CONNOISSEURS. 

I shall trouble you no longer with my friend's 
observations, which, I suppose, you are now able to 
continue by yourself. It is curious to observe, that, 
at the same time that great admiration is pretended 
for a name of fixed reputation, objections are raised 
against those very qualities by which that great name 
was acquired. 

Those Critics are continually lamenting that Raf- 
faelle had not the colouring and harmony of Rubens, 
or the light and shadow of Rembrandt, without con- 
sidering how much the gay harmony of the former, and 
affectation of the latter, would take from the dignity 
of Raffaelle ; and yet Rubens had great harmony, 
and Rembrandt understood light and shadow : but 
what may be an excellence in a lower class of paint- 
ing, becomes a blemish in a higher ; as the quick, 
sprightly turn which is the life and beauty of epi- 
grammatic compositions, would but ill suit with the 
majesty of heroic poetry. 

To conclude : I would not be thought to infer from 
anything that has been said that rules are absolutely 
unnecessary ; but to censure scrupulosity, a servile 
attention to minute exactness, which is sometimes 
inconsistent with higher excellency, and is lost in the 
blaze of expanded genius. 

I 



ART- CONWOISSE URS . 213 

I do not know whether you will tliink painting 
a general subject. By inserting this letter, perhaps 
you will incur the censure a man would deserve, 
whose business being to entertain a whole room, 
should turn his back to the company, and talk to a 
particular person. 

I am, Sir, &:c. 

[Sept, 29, 1759.] 



CiT. World] N° 30 [Goldsmith 

THE MAN IN BLACK. 



['0 &v9poj7ros evepyerbs treipvKCos. 

— Antonin.] 



'THROUGH fond of many acquaintances, I desire 
-*- an intimacy only with a few. The Man in 
Black, whom I have often mentioned, is one whose 
friendship I could wish to acquire, because he pos- 
sesses my esteem. His manners, it is true, are tinc- 
tured with come strange inconsistencies ; and he may 
be justly termed an humorist in a nation of humorists. 
Though he is generous even to profusion, he affects 
to be thought a prodigy of parsimony and prudence ; 
though his conversation be replete with the most 
sordid and selfish maxims, his heart is dilated with 
the most unbounded love. I have known him profess 
himself a man-hater, while his cheek was glowing with 
compassion ; and, while his looks were softened into 

pity, 



THE MAN IN BLACK. 215 

pity, I have heard him use the language of the most 
unbounded ill-nature. Some affect humanity and ten- 
derness, others boast of having such dispositions from 
Nature ; but he is the only man I ever knew who 
seemed ashamed of his natural benevolence. He takes 
as much pains to hide his feelings, as any h^i-pocrite 
would to conceal his indifference ; but on every un- 
guarded moment the mask drops off, and reveals him 
to the most superficial observer. 

In one of our late excursions into the country, 
happening to discourse upon the provision that was 
made for the poor in England, he seemed amazed how 
any of his countrymen could be so foolishly weak as 
to relieve occasional objects of charity, when the laws 
had made such ample provision for their support. 

* In every parish-house,' says he, ' the poor are sup- 

* plied with food, clothes, fire, and a bed to lie on ; 

* they want no more, I desire no more myself ; yet 

* still they seem discontented. I'm surprised at the 

* inactivity of our magistrates, in not taking up such 

* vagrants, who are only a weight upon the industri- 

* ous ; I'm surprised that the people are found to 

* relieve them, when they must be at the same time 

* sensible that it, in some measure, encourages idle- 

* ness, extravagance, and imposture. Were I to advise 

' any 



2i6 THE MAN IN BLACK. 

' any man for whom I had the least regard, I would 
' caution him by all means not to be imposed upon 
' by their false pretences : let me assure you, Sir, 
' they are impostors, every one of them ; and rather 
' merit a prison than relief.' 

He was proceeding in this strain earnestly, to dis- 
suade me from an imprudence of which I am seldom 
guilty, when an old man, who still had about him 
the remnants of tattered finery, implored our compas- 
sion. He assured us that he was no common beggar, 
but forced into the shameful profession to support a 
dying wife and five hungry children. Being prepos- 
sessed against such falsehoods, his story had not the 
least influence upon me ; but it was quite otherwise 
with the Man in Black ; I could see it visibly operate 
upon his countenance, and effectually interrupt his 
harangue. I could easily perceive that his heart 
burned to relieve the five starving children, but he 
seemed ashamed to discover his weakness to me. 
While he thus hesitated between compassion and 
pride, I pretended to look another way, and he seized 
this opportunity of giving the poor petitioner a piece of 
silver, bidding him at the same time, in order that I 
should hear, go work for his bread, and not tease passen- 
gers with such impertinent falsehoods for the future. 

As 



THE MAN IN BLACK. 



217 



As he had fancied himself quite unperceived, he 
continued, as we proceeded, to rail against beggars 
with as much animosity as before ; he threw in some 
episodes on his own amazing prudence and economy, 
with his profound skill in discovering impostors ; he 
explained the manner in which he would deal with 
beggars, were he a magistrate, hinted at enlarging 
some of the prisons fo1[" their reception, and told two 
stories of ladies that were robbed by beggarmen. He 
was beginning a third to the same purpose, when a 
sailor with a wooden leg once more crossed our walks, 
desiring our pity, and blessing our limbs. I was for 
going on without taking any notice,' but my friend 
looking wishfully upon the poor petitioner, bid me 
stop, and he would shew me with how much ease he 
could at any time detect an impostor. 

He now, therefore, assumed a look of importance, 
and in an angry tone began to examine the sailor, de- 
manding in what engagement he was thus disabled 
and rendered unfit for service. The sailor replied in 
a tone as angrily as he, that he had been an officer on 
board a private ship of war, and that he had lost his 
leg abroad, in defence of those who did nothing at 
home. At this reply, all my friend's importance 
vanished in a moment ; he had not a single question 

more 



2i8 THE MAN IN BLACK. 

more to ask ; he now only studied what method he 
should take to relieve him unobserved. He had, how- 
ever, no easy part to act, as he was obliged to preserve 
the appearance of ill-nature before me, and yet relieve 
himself by relieving the sailor. Casting, therefore, a 
furious look upon some bundles of chips which the 
fellow carried in a string at his back, my friend de- 
manded how he sold his matches ; but not waiting 
for a reply, desired, in a surly tone, to have a shilling's 
worth. The sailor seemed at first surprised at his de- 
mand, but soon recollecting himself, and presenting 
his whole bundle — ' Here, master,' says he, ' take all 
* my cargo, and a blessing into the bargain.' 

It is impossible to describe with what an air of 
triumph my friend marched off with his new pur- 
chase ; he assured me that he was firmly of opinion 
that those fellows must have stolen their goods who 
could thus afford to sell them for half value. He 
informed me of several different uses to which those 
chips might be applied ; he expatiated largely upon 
the savings that would result from lighting candles 
with a match instead of thrusting them into the fire. 
He averred that he would as soon have parted with a 
tooth as his money to those vagabonds, unless for 
some valuable consideration. I cannot tell how long 

this 



THE MAN IN BLACK. 219 

this panegyric upon frugality and matches might have 
continued, had not his attention been called off by 
another object more distressful than either of the 
former. A woman in rags, with one child in her 
arms, and another on her back, was attempting to 
sing ballads, but with such a mournful voice that it 
was difficult to determine whether she was singing or 
crying. A wretch, who in the deepest distress still 
aimed at good-humour, was an object my friend was 
by no means capable of withstanding; his vivacity 
and his discourse were instantly interrupted ; upon 
this occasion his very dissimulation had forsaken him. 
Even in my presence, he immediately applied his 
hands to his pockets, in order to relieve her; but 
guess his confusion, when he found he had already 
given away all the money he carried about him to 
former objects. The misery painted in the woman's 
visage was not half so strongly expressed as the agony 
in his. He continued to search for some time, but 
to no purpose, till, at length, recollecting himself, 
with a face of ineffable good-nature, as he had no 
money, he put into her hands his shilling's worth of 
matches. 

[1760.] 

BEAU 



CiT. World] N 3 1 [Goldsmith 

BEAU TIBBS. 



[Quid . . . feret hie promissor 7 
— HOR.] 



^ I ^HOUGH naturally pensive, yet I am fond of 
-■- gay company, and take every opportunity of 
thus dismissing the mind from duty. From this 
motive I am often found in the centre of a crowd; 
and wherever pleasure is to be sold, am always a 
purchaser. In those places, without being remarked 
by any, I join in whatever goes forward; work r.iy 
passions into a similitude of frivolous earnestness, 
shout as they shout, and condemn as they happen to 
disapprove. A mind thus sunk for awhile below its 
natural standard, is qualified for stronger flights, as 
those first retire who would spring forward with 
greater vigour. 
Attracted by the serenity of the evening, a friend 

and 



BEAU TIBBS. 221 

and I lately went to gaze upon tlie company in one of 
the public walks near the city. Here we sauntered 
together for some time, either praising the beauty of 
such as were handsome, or the dresses of such as had 
nothing else to recommend them. We had gone thus 
deliberately forward for some time, when my friend, 
stopping on a sudden, caught me by the elbow, 
and led me out of the public walk. I could perceive 
by the quickness of his pace, and by his frequently 
looking behind, that he was attempting to avoid 
somebody who followed ; we now turned to the right, 
then to the left ; as we went forward, he still went 
faster, but in vain ; the person whom he attempted ta 
escape, hunted us through every doubling, and gained 
upon us each moment ; so that at last we fairly stood 
still, resolving to face what we could not avoid. 

Our pursuer soon came up, and joined us with all 
the familiarity of an old acquaintance. ' My dear 
' Charles,' cries he, shaking my friend's hand, 'where 
' have you been hiding this half a century ? Posi- 
* tively I had fancied you were gone down to culti- 
' vate matrimony and your estate in the country.' 
During the reply I had an opportunity of surveying 
the appearance of our n^w companion. His hat was 
pinched up with peculiar smartness ; his looks were 

pale. 



222 BEAU TIBBS. 

pale, thin, and sharp ; round his neck he wore a 
broad black ribbon, and in his bosom a buckle studded 
with glass; his coat was trimmed with tarnished 
twist ; he wore by his side a sword with a black 
hilt, and his stockings of silk, though newly washed, 
were grown yellow by long service. I was so much 
engaged with the peculiarity of his dress, that I 
attended only to the latter part of my friend's reply, 
in which he complimented Mr. Tibbs on the taste 
of his clothes, and the bloom in his countenance. 
' Psha, psha, Charles I * cried the figure, ' no more 
' of that if you love me ; you know I hate flattery, on 
• ' my soul I do ; and yet, to be sure, an intimacy with 

* the great will improve one's appearance, and a course 

* of venison will fatten ; and yet, faith, I despise the 
' great as much as you do ; but there are a great many 
' honest fellows among them ; and we must not quarrel 
' with one half because the other wants breeding. If 
' they were all such as my Lord Mudler, one of the 

* most good-natured creatures that ever squeezed a 

* lemon, I should myself be among the number of 

* their admirers. I was yesterday to dine at the 
' Duchess of Piccadilly's. My lord was there. 

* "Ned," says he to me, "Ned," says he, "I'll 

* " hold gold to silver I can tell where you were 

' " poaching 



BEAU TIBBS. 223 

"poaching last night."— " Poaching, my lord?" 
says I; "faith, you have missed already; for I 
" stayed at home, and let the girls poach for me. 
"That's my way; I take a fine woman as some 
"animals do their prey; stand still, and swoop, 
" they fall into my mouth." ' 
* Ah, Tibbs, thou art an happy fellow,* cried my 
companion, with looks of infinite pity ; * I hope 

* your fortune is as much improved as your under- 

* standing in such company i" ' — ' Improved I ' replied 
the other ; ' you shall know — but let it go no fur- 

* ther, — a great secret — five hundred a-year to begin 

* with. — My lord's word of honour for it — His lord- 

* ship took me down in his own chariot yesterday, 

* and we had a tite-a-Ute dinner in the country ; 

* where we talked of nothing else.' — ' I fancy you 

* forgot, Sir,' cried I ; ' you told us but this moment 

* of your dining yesterday in town 1 ' * Did I say 

* so ? ' replied he, coolly. ' To be sure if I said so it 

* was so. — Dined in town : egad, now I do remember, 

* I did dine in town ; but I dined in the country too; 

* for you must know, my boys, I eat two dinners. 

* By the bye, I am grown as nice as the devil in my 

* eating. I'll tell you a pleasant affair about that : 

* We were a select party of us to dine at Lady Gro- 

' gram's. 



224 BEAU TIBBS. 

* gram's, an affected piece, but let it go no further ; 
*a secret. "Well," says I, "I'll hold a thousand 
'guineas, and say done first, that " But, dear 

* Charles, you are an honest creature, lend me half-a- 

* crown for a minute or two, or so, just till — But, 
' harkee, ask me for it the next time we meet, or it 
' may he twenty to one but I forget to pay you.' 

When he left us, our conversation naturally turned 
upon so extraordinary a character. ' His very dress,' 
cries my friend, * is not less extraordinary than his 
' conduct. If you meet him this day, you find him in 

* rags ; if the next, in embroidery-. With those per- 
' sons of distinction, of whom he talks so familiarly, 

* he has scarce a coffee-house acquaintance. How- 

* ever, both for the interests of society, and perhaps 
f for his own, Heaven has made him poor ; and while 

* all the world perceives his wants, he fancies them 

* concealed from every eye. An agreeable companion, 
' because he understands flattery ; and all must be 
' pleased with the first part of his conversation, 

* though all are sure of its ending with a demand on 

* their purse. While his youth countenances the 

* levity of his conduct, he may thus earn a precarious 

* subsistence ; but when age comes on, the gravity 
' of which is incompatible with buffoonery, then will 

'he 



BEAU TIBBS. 225 

« he find himself forsaken by all ; condemned, in 

* the decline of life, to hang upon some rich family 

* whom he once despised, there to undergo all the 

* ingenuity of studied contempt, to be employed only 

* as a spy upon the servants, or a bugbear to fright 

* children into duty.* 

' [1760.] 
17 



BEAU 



CiT. World] N" 3^ [Goldsmith 

BEAU TIBBS AT HOME. 



[ Hie vivhnus amhitiosa 

Pauper tate omnes. — Juv.] 



THERE are some acquaintances whom h is 
no easy matter to shake off. My little beau 
yesterday overtook me again in one of the public 
walks, and, slapping me on the shoulder, saluted me 
with an air of the most perfect familiarity. His dress 
was the same as usual, except that he had more 
powder in his hair ; wore a dirtier shirt, and had on a 
pair of temple spectacles, and his hat under his arm. 

As I knew him to be an harmless amusing little 
thing, I could not return his smiles with any degree 
of severity ; so we walked forward on terms of the 
utmost intimacy, and in a few minutes discussed all 
the* usual topics preliminary to particular conversa- 
tion. 

The 



BEAU TTBBS AT HOME. 227 

The oddities that marked his character, however, 
soon began to appear ; he bowed to several well- 
dressed persons, who, by their manner of returning 
the compliment, appeared perfect strangers. At in- 
tervals he drew out a pocket-book, seeming to take 
memorandums before all the company, with much 
importance and assiduity. In this manner he led me 
through the length of the whole Mall, fretting at his 
absurdities, and fancying myself laughed at as well as 
he by every spectator. 

When we were got to the end of our procession— 
' Hang me ! * cries he, with an air of vivacity, ' I 

* never saw the Park so thin in my life before ; there's 
' no company at all to-day. Not a single face to be 
'seen.' — 'No company!' interrupted I, peevishly; 

* no company where there is such a crowd ? why, 

* man, there is too much. What are the thousands 
' that have been laughing at us but company ? ' — 
' Lord, my dear,' returned he, with the utmost good 
humour, ' you seem immensely chagrined ; but, hang 

* me, when the world laughs at me, I laugh at all 

* the world, and so we are even. My Lord Trip, 

* Bill Squash, the Creolian, and I, sometimes make 

* a party at being ridiculous ; and so we say and do a 

* thousand things for the joke sake. But I see you 

' are 



228 BEAU TIBBS AT HOWE. 

* are grave, and if you are for a fine grave sentimental 

* companion, you shall dine with my wife to-day ; 

* I must insist on't ; I'll introduce you to Mrs. Tibbs, 

* a lady of as elegant qualifications as any in nature ; 

* she was bred, but that's between ourselves, under 

* the inspection of the Countess of Shoreditch. A 

* charming body of voice 1 But no more of that, she 

* shall give us a song. You shall see my little girl 

* too, Carolina Wilhelma Amelia Tibbs, a sweet 
' pretty creature ; I design her for my Lord Drum- 

* stick's eldest son ; but that's in friendship, let it go 

* no further ; she's but six years old, and yet she 

* walks a minuet, and plays on the guitar immensely 
' already. I intend she shall be as perfect as possible 

* in every accomplishment. In the first place I'll 

* make her a scholar ; I'll teach her Greek myself, 

* and I intend to learn that language purposely to 

* instruct her ; but let that be a secret.' 

Thus saying, without waiting for a reply, he took 
me by the arm and hauled me along. We passed 
through many dark alleys and winding ways; for, 
from some motives to me unknown, he seemed to 
have a particular aversion to every frequented street ; 
at last, however, we got to the door of a dismal-look- 
ing house in the outlets of the town, where he in- 
formed 



BEAU TIBBS AT HOME. 22c) 

formed me he chose to reside for the benefit of the 
air. 

We entered the lower door, which seemed ever to 
lie most hospitably open : and I began to ascend an 
old and creaking staircase, when, as he mounted to 
shew me the way, he demanded, whether I delighted 
in prospects ; to which answering in the affirmative, 
— ' Then,' says he, ' I shall show you one of the 
' most charming out of my windows ; we shall see 

* the ships saiHng, and the whole country for twenty 

* miles round, tip top, quite high. My Lord Swamp 

* would give ten thousand guineas for such a one ; 

* but, as I sometimes pleasantly tell him, I always love 

* to keep my prospects at home, that my friends may 

* come to see me the oftener.' 

By this time we were arrived as high as the stairs 
would permit us to ascend, till we came to what he 
was facetiously pleased to call the first floor down the 
chimney; and knocking at the door, a voice, with 
a Scotch accent, from within, demanded — * Wha's 

* there?' My conductor answered, that it was him. 
But this not satisfying the querist, the voice again 
repeated the demand : to which he answered louder 
than before, and now the door was opened by an old 
maid servant with caufious reluctance. 

When 



230 BEAU TIBBS AT HOME. 

When we were got in, he welcomed me to his 
house with great ceremony, and turning to the old 
woman, asked where her lady was ? * Good. troth,' re- 
plied she in the northern dialect, ' she's washing your 

* twa shirts at the next door, because they have taken 

* an oath against lending out the tub any longer.' — 

* My two shirts 1 ' cries he in a tone that faltered 
with confusion, * what does the idiot mean 1 ' — * I ken 

* what I mean well enough,' replied the other ; ' she's 

* washing your twa shirts at the next door, because 
* ' ' Fire and fury 1 no more of thy stupid ex- 

* planations,' cried he. ' Go and inform her we have 

* got company. Were that Scotch hag,' continued 
he, turning to me, ' to be for ever in the family, she 
' would never learn politeness, nor forget that absurd 

* poisonous accent of hers, or testify the smallest 
' specimen of breeding or high life ; and yet it is very 
' surprising too, as 1 had her from a parliament man, 
' a friend of mine, from the Highlands, one of the 
' politest men in the world ; but that's a secret.' 

We waited some time for Mrs. Tibbs' arrival, dur- 
ing which interval I had a full opportunity of sur- 
veying the chamber and all its furniture ; which 
consisted of four chairs with old wrought bottoms, 
that he assured me were his* wife's embroidery; a 

square 



BEAU TIBBS AT HOME. 231 

square table that had been once japanned, a cradle in 
one corner, a lumbering cabinet in the other ; a 
broken shepherdess, and a mandarine without a head, 
were stuck over the chimney ; and round the walls 
several paltry, unframed pictures, which, he observed, 
were all of his own drawing — ' What do you think, 

* Sir, of that head in the corner, done in the manner 

* of Grisoni ? There's the true keeping in it ; it's my 

* own face : and though there happens to be no like- 
' ness, a countess offered me an hundred for its 
' fellow : I refused her ; for, hang it, that would be 

* mechanical, you know.' 

The wife, at last, made her appearance, at once a 
slattern and a coquette; much emaciated, but still 
carrying the remains of beauty. She made twenty 
apologies for being seen in such odious dishabille, but 
hoped to be excused, as she had stayed out all night at 
Vauxhall Gardens with the countess, who was exces- 
sively fond of the horns.—' And indeed, my dear,' 
added she, turning to her husband, ' his lordship drank 

* your health in a bumper.' — ' Poor Jack,' cries he, ' a 

* dear good-natured creature, I know he loves me ; but 

* I hope, my dear, you have given orders for dinner ? 

* you need make no great preparations neither, there 

* are but three of us ; something elegant, and little 

' will 



232 BEAU TiBBS AT HOME. 

' will do ; a turbot, an ortolan, or a ' ' Or what 

' do you think, my dear,' interrupts the wife, ' of a 

* nice pretty bit of ox-cheek, piping hot, and dressed 

* with a little of my own sauce ? ' — ' The very thing,* 
replies he ; 'it will eat best with some smart bottled 
' beer ; but be sure to let's have the sauce his grace 

* was so fond of. I hate your immense loads of 

* meat ; that is country all over ; extreme disgusting 

* to those who are in the least acquainted with high 
' life.' 

By this time my curiosity began to abate, and my 
appetite to increase ; the company of fools may at first 
make us smile, but at last never fails of rendering 
us melancholy. I therefore pretended to recollect a 
prior engagement, and after having shewn my respect 
to the house, by giving the old servant a piece of 
money at the door, I took my leave : Mr. Tibbs 
assuring me that dinner, if I stayed, would be ready 
at least in less than two hours. 

[1760.] 



BEAU 



CiT. World] N^ ^^ [Goldsmith 

BEAU TIBBS AT VAUXHALL. 



[ Nunc et campus, et area, 

Lenesque sub noctem susurri 
Composita repetantur hora. 

— HOR.] 



THE people of London are as fond of walking as 
our friends at Pekin of riding ; one of the 
principal entertainments of the citizens here in sum- 
mer is to repair about nightfall to a garden not far 
from town, where they walk about, shew their best 
clothes and best faces, and listen to a concert provided 
for the occasion. 

I accepted an invitation, a few evenings ago, from 
my old friend, the Man in Black, to be one of a party 
that was to sup there; and at the appointed hour 
waited upon him at his lodgings. There I found the 
company assembled, and expecting my arrival. Our 

party 



234 BEAU TIBBS AT FAUXHALL. 

party consisted of my friend in superlative finery, his 
stockings rolled, a black velvet waistcoat which was 
formerly new, and his grey wig combed down in 
imitation of hair ; a pawn-broker's widow, of whom, 
by the bye, my friend was a professed admirer, dressed 
out in green damask, with three gold rings on every 
finger ; Mr. Tibbs, the second-rate beau I have for- 
merly described, together with his lady, in flimsy 
silk, dirty gauze instead of linen, and a hat as big 
as an umbrella. 

Our first difficulty was in settling how we should 
set out. Mrs. Tibbs had a natural aversion to the 
water ; and the widow, being a little in flesh, as 
warmly protested against walking ; a coach was there- 
fore agreed upon ; which being too small to carry 
five, Mr. Tibbs consented to sit in his wife's lap. 

In this manner, therefore, we set forward, being 
entertained by the way with the bodings of Mr. Tibbs, 
who assured us he did not expect to see a single 
creature for the evening above the degree of a cheese- 
monger; that this was the last night of the gardens, 
and that, consequently, we should be pestered with the 
nobility and gentry from Thames Street and Crooked 
Lane ; with several other prophetic ejaculations, prob- 
ably inspired by the uneasiness of his situation. 

The 



BEAU TIBBS AT VAUXHALL. 235 

The illuminations began before we arrived ; and I 
must confess, that, uptfn entering the gardens, I 
found every sense overpaid with more than expected 
pleasure : the lights everywhere glimmering through 
the scarcely moving trees; the full-bodied concert 
bursting on the stillness of the night, the natural 
concert of the birds, in the more retired part of the 
grove, vying with that which was formed by art; 
the company gaily dressed, looking satisfaction, and 
the tables spread with various delicacies ; all conspired 
to fill my imagination with the visionary happiness of 
the Arabian law-giver, and lifted me into an ecstasy of 
admiration. 'Head of Confucius,' cried I to my 
friend, * this is fine I this unites rural beauty with 

* courtly magnificence ; if we except the virgins of 
^ immortality that hang on every tree, and may be 

* plucked at every desire, I do not see how this falls 

* short of Mahomet's Paradise I ' — 'As for virgins,' 
cries my friend, ' it is true, they are a fruit that don't 

* much abound in our gardens here ; but if ladies, as 

* plenty as apples in autumn, and as complying as any 

* hoiiri of them all, can content you, I fancy we have 

* no need to go to heaven for paradise.' 

I was going to second his remarks, when we were 
called to a consultation by Mr. Tibbs and the rest of 

tho 



236 BEAU TIBBS AT VAUXHALL. 

the company, to know in what manner we were to 
lay out the evening to the greatest advantage. Mrs. 
Tibbs was for keeping the genteel walk of the garden, 
where, she observed, there was always the very best 
company ; the widow, on the contrary, who came 
but once a season, was for securing a good standing- 
place to see the water-works, which, she assured us, 
would begin in less than an hour at farthest : a dispute 
therefore began ; and, as it was managed between two 
of very opposite characters, it threatened to grow 
more bitter at every reply. Mrs. Tibbs wondered 
how people could pretend to know the polite world, 
who had received all their rudiments of breeding 
behind a counter ; to which the other replied, that, 
though some people sat behind counters, yet they 
could sit at the head of their own tables too, and 
carve three good dishes of hot meat whenever they 
thought proper, which was more than some people 
could say for themselves, that hardly knew a rabbit 
and onions from a green goose and gooseberries. 

It is hard to say where this might have ended, had 
not the husband, who probably knew the impetu- 
osity of his wife's disposition, proposed to end the 
dispute by adjourning to a box, and try if there was 
anything to be had for supper that was supportable. 

To 



BEAU TIBBS AT VAUXHALL. 257 

To this we all consented ; but here a new distress 
arose, Mr. and Mrs. Tibbs would sit in none but a 
genteel box, a box where they might see and be seen; 
one, as they expressed it, in the very focus of public 
view : but such a box was not easy to be obtained, 
for though we were perfectly convinced of our own 
gentility, and the gentility of our appearance, yet we 
found it a difficult matter to persuade the keepers of 
the boxes to be of our opinion ; they chose to reserve 
genteel boxes for what they judged more genteel 
company. 

At last, however, we were fixed, though somewhat 
obscurely, and supplied with the usual entertainment 
of the place. The widow found the supper excel- 
lent, but Mrs. Tibbs thought everything detestable. 

* Come, come, my dear,' cries the husband, by way 
of consolation, ' to be sure we can't find such dressing 

* here as we have at Lord Crump's, or Lady Crimp's; 

* but for Vauxhall dressing, it is pretty good ; it is 

* not their victuals, indeed, I find fault with, but their 

* wine ; their wine,' cries he, drinking off a glass, 

* indeed, is most abominable.' 

By this last contradiction, the widow was fairly 
conquered in point of politeness. She perceived now 
that she had no pretensions in the world to taste, her 

very 



238 BEAU TTBBS AT FAWniAIZ. 

very senses were vulgar, since she had praised detest- 
able custard, and smacked at wretched wine ; she was 
therefore content to yield the victory, and for the 
rest of the night to listen and improve. It is true, 
she would now and then forget herself, and confess 
she was pleased ; but they soon brought her back 
again to miserable refinement. She once praised the 
painting of the box in which we were sitting ; but 
was soon convinced that such paltry pieces ought 
rather to excite horror than satisfaction ; she ventured 
again to commend one of the singers; but Mrs. 
Tibbs soon let her know, in the style of a connoisseur, 
that the singer in question had neither ear, voice, 
nor judgment. 

Mr. Tibbs, now willing to prove that his wife's 
pretensions to music were just, entreated her to 
favour the company with a song; but to this she 
gave a positive denial — ' For you know very well, my 

* dear,* says she, * that I am not in voice to-day ; 

* and when one's voice is not equal to one's judgment, 

* what signifies singing? Besides, as there is no 

* accompaniment, it would be but spoiling music' 
All these excuses, however, were over-ruled by the 
rest of the company ; who, though one would think 
they already had music enough, joined in the en- 
treaty 



BEAU TIBB5 AT VAUXIIALL. 2^1) 

treaty; but particularly the widow, now willing to 
convince the company of her breeding, pressed so 
warmly, that she seemed determined to take no refusal. 
At last, then, the lady complied; and, after humming 
for some minutes, began with such a voice, and such 
affectation, as I could perceive gave but little satisfac- 
tion to any except her husband. He sat with rapture 
in his eye, and beat time with his hand on the table. 
You must observe, my friend, that it is the custom 
of this country, when a lady or gentleman happens to 
sing, for the company to sit as mute and motionless 
as statues. Every feature, every limb, must seem to 
correspond in fixed attention ; and while the song 
continues, they are to remain in a state of universal 
petrefaction. In this mortifying situation, we had 
continued for some time, listening to the song, and 
looking with tranquillity, when the master of the box 
came to inform us, that the water-works were going 
to begin. At this information, I could instantly per- 
ceive the widow bounce from her seat ; but correcting 
herself, she sat down again, repressed by motives of 
good-breeding. Mrs. Tibbs, who had seen the water- 
works a hundred times, resolving not to be inter- 
rupted, continued her song without any share of 
mercy, nor had the smallest pity upon our impatience. 

The 



240 BEAU TIBBS AT VAUXHALL. 

The widow's face, I own, gave me high entertain- 
ment ; in it I could plainly read the struggle she felt 
between good-breeding and curiosity; she talked of 
the water-works the whole evening before, and 
seemed to have come merely in order to see them ; 
but then she could not bounce out in the very middle 
of a song, for that would be forfeiting all pretensions to 
high lifej or high-lived company, ever alter : Mrs. Tibbs 
therefore kept on singing, and we contfnued to listen, 
till at last, when the song was just concluded, the waiter 
came to inform us that the water-works were over I 

* The water- works over ! ' cried the widow ; ' the 
' water-works over already ! that's impossible ; they 
* can't be over so soon 1 ' — ' It is not my business,* 
replied the fellow, * to contradict your ladyship ; I'll 
' run again and see.' He went, and soon returned 
with a confirmation of the dismal tidings. No cere- 
mony could now bind my friend's disappointed mis- 
tress, she testified her displeasure in the openest 
manner ; in short, she now began to find fault in 
turn, and at last insisted upon going home, just at 
the time that Mr. and Mrs. Tibbs assured the company 
that the polite hours were going to begin, and that 
the ladies would instantaneously be entertained with 
the horns. 

[1760.] ' A 



Lounger] N 34 [Mackenzie 

A COUNTRY DOWAGER, 



' Sed in longum tamen avum 

Manserunt hodieque manent vestigia ruris. 

— HOR. 



'' I ""HAT there is Nobody in town, is the observation 
■*- of every person one has met for several weeks 
past ; and though the word Nobody, like its fellow- 
vocable Everybody, has a great latitude of signification, 
and in this instance means upwards of three score 
thousand people, yet Undoubtedly, in a certain rank 
of life, one finds, at this season, a very great blank 
in one's accustomed society. He whom circumstances 
oblige to remain in town, feels a sort of imprisonment 
from which his more fortunate acquaintance have, 
escaped to purer air, to fresher breezes, and a clearer 
sky. He sees, with a very melancholy aspect, the 
close window-shutters of deserted houses, the rusted 

knockers, 
18 



242 A COUNTRY DOWAGER. 

knockers, and mossy pavement of unfrequented 
squares, and the few distant scattered figures of 
empty walks ; while he fancies, in the country, the 
joyousness of the reapers, and the shout of the 
sportsman enlivening the fields; and within doors, 
the hours made jocund by the festivity of assembled 
friends, the frolic, the dance, and the song. . . . 

I am not sure if, in the regret which I feel for 
my absence from the country, I do not rate its 
enjoyments higher, and paint its landscapes in more 
glowing colours, than the reality might afford. I 
have long cultivated a talent very fortunate for a man 
of my disposition, that of travelling in my easy chair, 
of transporting myself, without stirring from my 
parlour, to distant places and to absent friends, of 
drawing scenes in my mind's eye, and of peopling 
them with the groups of fancy, or the society of re- ' 
membrance. When I have sometimes lately felt the 
dreariness of the town, deserted by my acquaintance ; 
when I have returned from the coffee-house where 
the boxes were unoccupied, and strolled out for my 
accustomed walk, which even the lame beggar had 
left ; I was fain to shut myself up in my room, order 
a dish of my best tea (for there is a sort of melancholy 
which disposes one to make much of one's self), and 

calling 



A COUNTRY DOWAGER. 243 

calling up the powers of memory and imagination, 
leave the solitary town for a solitude more interesting, 
which my younger days enjoyed in the country, 
which I think, and if I am wrong I do not wish 
to be undeceived, was the most Elysian spot in the 
world. 

'Twas at an old lady's, a relation and godmother of 
mine, where a particular incident occasioned my being 
left during the vacation of two successive seasons. 
Her house was formed out of the remains of an old 
Gothic castle, of which one tower was still almost 
entire ; it was tenanted by kindly daws and swallows. 
Beneath, in a modernised part of the building, resided 
the mistress of the mansion. The house was skirted 
with a few majestic elms and beeches, and the stumps 
of several others shev/ed that they had once been 
more numerous. To the west, a clump of firs 
covered a ragged rocky dell, where the rooks claimed 
a prescriptive seignory. Through this a dashing 
rivulet forced its way, which afterwards grew quiet 
in its progress ; and gurgling gently through a piece 
of downy meadow-ground, crossed the bottom of the 
garden, where a little rustic paling enclosed a washing- 
green, and a wicker seat, fronting the south, was 
placed for the accommodation of the old Lady, whose 

lesser 



244 A COUNTRY DOWAGER. 

lesser tour, when her fields did not require a visit, used 
to terminate in this spot. Here, too, were ranged the 
hives for her bees, whose hum, in a still, warm sun- 
shine, soothed the good old Lady's indolence, while 
their proverbial industry was sometimes quoted for 
the instruction of her washers. The brook ran brawl- 
ing through some underwood on the outside of the 
garden, and soon after formed a little cascade, which 
fell into the river that winded through a valley in front 
of the house. When haymaking or harvest was going 
on, my godmother took her long stick in her hand, 
and overlooked the labours of the mowers or reapers ; 
though I believe there was little thrift in the super- 
intendency, as the visit generally cost her a draught 
of beer or a dram, to encourage their diligence. 

Within doors she had so able an assistant, that her 
labour was little. In that department an old man- 
servant was her minister, the father of my Peter, 
who serves me not the less faithfully that we have 
gathered nuts together in my godmother's hazel-bank. 
This old butler (I call him by his title of honour, 
though in truth he had many subordinate offices) 
had originally enlisted with her husband, who went 
into the army a youth, though he afterwards married 
and became a country gentleman, had been his ser^ 

vant 



A COUNTRY DOWAGER. 245 

vant abroad, and attended him during his last illness 
at home. His best hat, which he wore a-Sundays, 
with a scarlet waistcoat of his master's, had still a 
cockade in it. 

Her husband's books were in a room at the top of a 
screw staircase, which had scarce been opened since his 
death ; but her own library for Sabbath or rainy days, 
was ranged in a little book-press in the parlour. It 
consisted, as far as I can remember, of several volumes 
of sermons, a Concordance, Thomas a'Kempis, Anto- 
ninus's Meditations, the Works of the Author of the 
Whole Duty of Man, and a translation of Boethius ; 
the original editions of the Spectator and Guardian, 
■Cowley's Poems, Dryden's Works (of which I had 
■lost a volume soon after I first came about her house). 
Baker's Chronicle, Burnet's History of his own Times, 
Lamb's Royal Cookery, Abercromby's Scots War- 
riors, and Nisbet's Heraldry. 

The subject of the last-mentioned book was my god- 
mother's strong ground ; and she could disentangle a 
point of genealogy beyond anybody I ever knew. She 
had an excellent memory for anecdote, and her stories, 
though sometimes long, were never tiresome ; for she 
had been a woman of great beauty and accomplishments 
in her youth, and had kept such company as made the 

drama 



246 A COUNTRY DOWAGER. 

drama of her stories respectable and interesting. She 
spoke frsquently of such of her own family as she re- 
membefed when a child, but scarcely ever of those she 
had lost, though one could see she thought of them 
ofte;!'. She had buried a beloved husband and four 
children. Her youngest, Edward, ' her beautiful, her 
' brave,' fell in Flanders, and was not entombed with 
his ancestors. His picture, done when a child, an 
artless red and white portrait, smelling at a nosegay, 
but very like withal, hung at her bedside, and his 
sword and gorget were crossed under it. When she 
spoke of a soldier, it was in a stj'le above her usual 
simplicity ; there was a sort of swell in her language, 
which sometimes a tear (for her age had not lost the 
privilege of tears) made still more eloquent. She kept 
her sorrows, like the devotions that solaced them, 
sacred to herself. They threw nothing of gloom over 
her deportment ; a gentle shade only, like the fleckered 
clouds of summer, that increase, not diminish, the 
benignity of the season. 

She had few neighbours, and still fewer visitors; 
but her reception of such as did visit her was cordial in 
the extreme. She pressed a little too much, perhaps; 
but there was so much heart and good- will in her impor- 
tunity, as made her good things seem better than those 

of 



A COUNTRY DOWAGER. 247 

of any other table. Nor was her attention confined 
only to the good fare of her guests, though it might have 
flattered her vanity more than that of most exhibitors 
of good dinners, because the cookery was generally 
directed by herself. Their servants lived as well in her 
hall, and their horses in her stable. She looked after 
the airing of their sheets, and saw their fires mended 
if the night was cold. Her old butler, who rose 
betimes, would never suffer any body to mount his 
horse fasting. 

The parson of the parish was her guest every Sun- 
day, and said prayers in the evening. To say truth, 
he was no great genius, nor much a scholar. I believe 
my godmother knew rather more of divinity than he 
did; but she received from him information of another 
sort; he told her who were the poor, the sick, the 
dying of the parish, and she had some assistance, some 
comfort for them all. 

I could draw the old lady at this moment ! — dressed 
in grey, with a clean white hood nicely plaited (for she 
was somewhat finical about the neatness of her person), 
sitting in her straight-backed elbow-chair, which stood 
in a large window scooped out of the thickness of the 
ancient wall. The middle panes of the window were 
of painted glass, the story of Joseph and his brethren. 

On 



248 A COUNTRY DOWAGER. 

On the outside waved a honeysuckle-tree, which often 
threw its shade across her book or her work ; but she 
would not allow it to be cut down. ' It has stood there 

* many a day,' said she, ' and we old inhabitants should 

* bear with one another.' Methinks I see her thus 
seated, her spectacles on, but raised a little on her brow 
for a pause of explanation, their shagreen-case laid be- 
tween the leaves of a silver-clasped family-bible.— On 
one side her bell and snuff-box ; on the other her knit- 
ting apparatus in a blue damask bag. Between her and 
the fire an old Spanish pointer, that had formerly been 
her son Edward's, teased, but not teased out of his 
gravity, by a little terrier of mine. All this is before 
me, and I am a hundred miles from town, its inhabi- 
tants, and its business. In town I may have seen 
such a figure ; but the country scenery around, like 
the tasteful frame of an excellent picture, gives it 
a heightening, a relief, which it would lose in any 
other situation. 

Some of my readers, perhaps, will look with little 
relish on the portrait. I know it is an egotisrri in me 
to talk of its value ; but over this dish of tea, and in 
such a temper of mind, one is given to egotism. It 
will be only adding another to say, that when I recal 
the rural scene of the good old lady's abode, her 

simple. 



A COUNTRY DOWAGER. 249 

simple, her innocent, her useful employments, the 
afflictions she sustained in this world, the comforts 
she drew from another, I feel a serenity of soul, 
a benignity of affections, which I am sure confer 
happiness, and I think must promote virtue. 

[Sept. 30, 1786.] 



ILLUSTRATIVE 



ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 



No. I, page I. — Mr. Bickerstaff Visits a Friend. 
— For those to whom the touching domestic picture 
contained in this and the following paper is un- 
familiar, it may be well to recall a passage from Mr. 
Forster's Steele (^Historical and Biographical Essays, 
1858, ii,, 138) : — ' In connexion with it, too, it is to 
' be remembered that at this time [1709], as Mr. 
' Macaulay obser^'es in his Essay, no such thing as 
' the English novel existed. De Foe as yet was 
' only an eager politician, Richardson an industrious 
' compositor. Fielding a mischievous schoolboy, and 

* Smollett and Goldsmith were not born. For your 

* circulating libraries (the first of which had been 

* established some six years before, to the horror of 

* sellers of books, and the ruin of its ingenious in- 

* ventor) there was as yet nothing livelier, in that 

* direction, than the interminable Grand Cyrus of 

* Madame de Scuderi, or the long-winded Cassandi-a 

* and Pharamond of the lord of La Calprenede, which 

* Steele so heartily laughed at in his Tender Husband.' 

A 'point of war' (p. 7) is used by Shakespeare 
and the Elizabethans for a strain of military music. — • 
(See Henrv IV., Act iv,, Sc. i.) 'John Hickathrift' 

(p. 8) 



2)2 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 

(p. 8) is generally styled * Thomas' in the ' Pleasant 
' and Delightful Histories' which record his adven- 
tures. But Sterne also calls him 'Jack' in vol. i., 
ch. xiv. of Tristram Shandy. 



No. 2, page io. — Mr. Bickerstaff Visits a Friend 
(continued). — The latter part of this paper was writ- 
ten by Addison. ' It would seem [to quote Mr. 

* Forster once more] as though Steele felt himself 

* unable to proceed, and his friend had taken the pen 

* from his trembling hand.' — (ih., p. 141.) 

* Favonius ' (p. 1 1), as Steele acknowledges in the 
'Preface' to the Tatler of 1710 (vol. iv.), was Dr. 
George Smalridge, at that time Lecturer of St. Dun- 
stan's, Fleet Street, and ultimately Bishop of Bristol, 
He took part, on the side of the ancients, in the Boyle 
and Bentley controversy. Macaulay, in the life of 
Atterbury which he wrote in 1853 for xht Encyclo- 
paedia Britannica, calls him ' the humane and accom- 

* plished Smalridge.' There is an excellent print of 
him by Vertue after Kneller (1724). 



No. 3, page 17.— Tfe Trumpet Cluh.—']zck 
' Ogle ' (p. 20) was a noted gambler and duellist. On 
one occasion, having lost his " martial cloak " at play, 
he came to muster in his landlady's red petticoat. 
The Duke of Monmouth, who was in the secret, 
ordered the troop to cloak. ' Gentlemen,' bawled the 
unabashed Ogle, ' if I can't cloak, I can petticoat with 
* the best of you 1 * This is the Bencher's story. 

Mr. 



ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 25? 

Mr. Bickerstaff's ' maid with a lanthorn ' (p. 22) 
throws a curious hght upon the dim nocturnal 
London of 1710, where only in the more frequented 
thoroughfares, 

' oily raj's, 

' Shot from the crystal lamp, o'erspread the ways.' 

For some of its many perils to belated pedestrians, 
consult Gay's Trivia, Bk. iii., 1. 335 et seq. 

The Trumpet was a public-house in Sheer- or Shire- 
Lane, by Temple Bar, where the New Law Courts 
now stand. It still existed as the Duke of York in 
Leigh Hunt's time. — (The Town, i8-,8, i., 148.) 



No. 4, page 24. — The Political Upholsterer. — 
King Augustus of Poland (p. 25) was deposed in 
1704 ; Charles XII. of Sweden (p. 26) was wounded 
in a skirmish on the banks of the Vorskla before Pol- 
tava, June 28th, 1709. The winter muff for men 
(p. 25) which figures among the ' shabby super- 
' fluities ' of the Upholsterer's costume, although of 
anterior date, is not often referred to so early. Ex- 
amples of it are to be seen in Hogarth's Swearing a 
Child (1735), Rake's Progress (1735), PL iv., and 
Taste in High Life (1742). But it was most in fashion 
twenty or thirty years later. In November 1766, my 
Lord of March and Ruglen (the March of the Vir- 
ginians) writes thus to George Selwyn at Paris: — 
' The muff you sent me by the Duke of Richmond I 
' like prodigiously ; vastly better than if it had been 
* tigre, or of any glaring colour : several are now 

' making 



254 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 

' making after it.' — (Jesse's Selwyn, 1843, ii,, 71 ; see 
also Goldsmith's Bee, 1759, No. ii., ' On Dress.') 

Fielding's comedy of the Coffee-House Politician, 
1730, has certain affinities with this paper ; and 
Arthur Murphy's farce of The Upholsterer ; cr, What 
News? 1758, is said to have been based upon it. 
It has also been alleged that Mr. Edward Arne, an 
upholsterer at the sign of the ' Two Crowns and 

* Cushions,' in King Street, Covent Garden, father 
of Arne the musician, and Mrs. Cibber the tragic 
actress, was the person here satirised by Addison. 
In identifications of this sort, however, the fol- 
lowing passage may well be borne in mind: — 'To 

* prevent, therefore, any such malicious applications, 

* I declare here, once for all, I describe not men, but 

* manners; not an individual, but a species. Perhaps 

* it will be answered. Are not the characters then 

* taken from life ? To which I answer in the affirma- 
' tive ; nay, I believe I might aver that I have writ 
' little more than I have st^n.^— (Joseph Andrews, Bk. 
iii., ch. i.) 



No. 5, page 31. — Tom Folio. — Rightly or wrong- 
ly (see previous note), * Tom Folio ' has been said to be 
intended for Thomas Rawlinson, a famous book-lover 
of the Eighteenth Century. According to Dibdin, he 
was ' a very extraordinary character, and most des- 

* perately addicted to book-hunting. Because his own 

* house was not large enough, he hired London House, 

* in Aldersgate Street, for the reception of his library, 
' and here he used to regale himself with the sight 

' and 



ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 2 5 5 

* and the scent of innumerable black-letter volumes, 
'arranged in "sable garb," and stowed perhaps 

* " three-deep," from the bottom to the top of his 

* house. He died in 1725 ; and Catalogues of his 

* books for sale continued, for nine successive years, 

* to meet the public eye.' — (The Bibliomania ; or, Book- 
Madness, 1809, p. 33.) 

The quotation (p. 36) is from Boileau's fourth 
satire, addressed in 1664 to Monsieur I'Abbe le 
Vayer. 



No. 6, page 37. — Ned Softly the Poe/.— Although 
the fact seems to have escaped Chalmers and the 
earlier annotators, Addison must plainly have been 
thinking of Scene IX. of Les Pre'cieuses Ridicules when 
he penned this pleasant piece of raillery : — 

' Mascariile. — Avez-vous remarque ce commencemefit : 
'Oh! oh? Voila qui est extraordi?iai7-e : oh, oh ! Co77tme 
' un homme qui s'avise tout dun couJ> : oh, oh I JLa sur- 
^ prise : oh, oh ! 

' Madelon. — Oui, je trouve ce oh, oh ! advtirable. 

' Mascarllle. — // sernble que cela ne soit rleyi. 

'Cathos. — Ah I 7uon Dieu, que dites-vous? Ce sont la 
* de ces sortes de cJioses qui ne se peuvent payer. 

' Madelon. — Sans doute ; etfaimerois mieux avoir faii 
' ce oh, oh ! qu'un poeme epique.' — {Les G? ands Ecrivains 
de la France ; Moliere, 1875, ii , 86.) 



No. 7, page 44.-^ Recollections of Childhood— 
There is a stanza in Prior's poem of The Garland, 



2S6 ILLUSTILiTIFE NOTES, 

which has a superficial resemblance to Steele's words 
at p. 49 respecting his first love : — 

' At Dawn poor Stella danc'd and sung ; 

* The am'rous Youth around Her bow'd : 
* At Night her fatal Knell was rung ; 

' I saw, and kiss'd Her in her Shroud.' 

The Garland is not included in Prior's Poems on Several 
Occasions, 1709 ; but it appears at p. 91 of the folio of 
1 7 18, It is therefore just possible that the lines may 
have been suggested by Steele's paper. 

Garra way's Coffee-House (p. 50), where ' merchants 

* most did congregate,' was in Exchange Alley, Corn- 
hill; and, in the original folio issue of this ' Taller,' 
there is a long advertisement of the coming sale of 

* 46 Hogsheads and One half of extraordinary French 

* Claret,' for which Steele's concluding paragraph is 
no doubt a ' pufF collateral.' 

Comparing the treatment of Death by Swift, Ad- 
dison, and Steele, Mr. Thackeray selected the second 
paragraph of this essay for its characteristic contrast 
to Addison's ' lonely serenity ' and Swift's * savage 
' indignation : ' — ' The third, whose theme is Death, 
' too, and who will speak his word of moral as 

* Heaven teaches him, leads you up to his father's 

* coffin, and shews you his beautiful mother weeping, 

* and himself an unconscious little boy wondering at 

* her side. His own natural tears flow as he takes 

* your hand, and confidingly asks for your sympathy. 
' " See how good and innocent and beautiful women 

* " are," he says, " how tender little children 1 Let 

* " us love these and one another, brother — God 

' " knows 



ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 2^7 

* " knows we have need of love and pardon." ' — (The 
English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century : Steele, 
1853, p. 149.) 



No. 8, page 51. — Adventures of a Shilling.— 
Hawkesworth copied this idea in the Adventurer, No. 
43 , substituting a halfpenny for a shilling, and later 
Charles Johnstone amplified it into Chrysal ; or, 
the Adventures of a Guinea, 1760-5. The inventive 

* friend ' of the first lines was Swift. In the Journal 
to Stella, Dec. 14, 1710, he refers to the paper, saying 
that he did not do more than give the ' hint and two 

* or three general heads for it.' 

The allusion to ' Westminster Hall ' (p. 54) sug- 
gests Lloyd's lines in the Law Student — 

* 'Tis not enough each morn, on Term's approach, 
' To club your legal threepence for a coach,' 

but they belong to a later date. * A monstrous pair 
' of breeches' (p. 56) is said to refer to the hose- 
like shields on the Commonwealth coinage. John 
Philips, author of The Splendid Shilling (p. 57), died 



No. 9, page 59. — Frozen Voices. — According to 

Tickell, Steele assisted in this paper. Its germ may 

perhaps be traced to Rabelais, Book iv., Chaps. 55, 56 

(i.e. — ' Comment en haulte mer Pantagruel ouyt diuerses 

* parolles desgelees,' and * Comment, entre les parolles 

' gelees 
19 ^ 



258 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 

' gelees, Pantagrucl treuua des moti de gueulle) ; * or to 
the following passage from Heylyn's description of 
Muscovie : — ' This excesse of cold in the ayre, gaue 
' occasion to Castilian in his Aulicus, wittily & not 

* incongruously to faine ; that if two men being 
' somewhat distant, talke together in the winter, 
' their words will be so frozen, that they cannot bee 

* heard : but if the parties in the spring returne to 

* the same place, their words wil melt in the same 
' order that they were frozen and spoken, & be 
' plainely vnderstood,' — {MiKpoKocrfios, a little Descrip- 
tion of the great World, 4th edn., 1629, p. 545.)* 

The episode of the Frenchmen's kit (p. 65) may 
be compared with the later account in Munchhausen 
of the postillion's horn that began to play of its 
own accord when hung in the chimney corner : — 

* Suddenly we heard a Tereng ! tcreng I teng! teng I 
' We looked round, and now found the reason why 

* the postillion had not been able to sound his horn ; 
' his tunes were frozen up in the horn, and came out 

* now by thawing, plain enough, and much to the 

* Heylyn must have quoted from memory, for Castiliat^s 
(Castiglione's) story, which is too long for reproduction, 
differs in some respects from the above. — (See // Corte- 
g;ia?to, or the Courtier, Italian and English, London, 1727, 
Bk. ii., p. 189.) But the idea is probably much earlier 
than any of the writers named. In Notes and Queries for 
1850 will be found a full discussion of this question, for 
reference to which, as well as for many other friendly 
services that deserve more prominent recognition than a 
footnote, we are indebted to the kindness of Mr. R. F. 
Sketchley, Keeper of the Dyce and Forster Library at 
South Kensington. 

* credit 



ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 259 

* credit of the driver : so that the honest fellow enter- 

* tained us for some time with a variety of tunes, 

* without putting his. mouth to the horn — The King 

* of Prussia's march — Over the hill and over the dale 

* — with many other favourite tunes : at length the 

* thawing entertainment concluded, as I shall this 

* short account of my Russian travels.* — (The Sur- 
prising Travels and Adventures of Baron Munchhausen, 
Hughes's edn., no date, p. 19. The book was first 
published by Kearsley in 1786.) 



No. 10, page 67. — Stage Lions. — Nicolino Grim- 
aldi, or 'Nicolini,' came to London in 1708, and in 
the Tatler of January 3, 1710 (No. 115) Steele gives 
a highly favourable account of his powers. He had 
not only a good voice, but, as Addison also admits 
(p. 72), he was a good actor as well ; and Gibber 
thought ' that no Singer, since his Time, had so 
' justly and gracefully acquitted himself, in whatever 
* Character he appear'd, as Nicolini.'' — {An Apology 
for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibher, Comedian, 1740, 
p. 225.) There is a further reference to him in No. 
405 of the Spectator. 

Hydaspes (p. 68) was first produced on May 23, 
1 710. Being thrown naked to a lion, the hero, 
after an operatic combat scion les regies, strangles his 
opponent. 



No. II, page 73. — Meditations in Westminster 
Abbey.— Bird's Monument to Sir Gloudesly Shovel 

(P-72) 



26o ILLUSTILiTIVE NOTES. 

(p. 72) is in the south aisle of the Choir. The con- 
cluding paragraph of this paper may be contrasted 
with another classic passage : — ' O Eloquent, Just 

* and Mighty Death I whom none could advise, thou 

* hast perswaded ; what none hath dared, thou hast 

* done ; and whom all the World hath flattered, thou 
' only hast cast out of the World and despised : thou 

* hast drawn together all the far stretched Greatness, 

* all the Pride, Cruelty and Ambition of Man, and 

* covered it all over with these two narrow words, 

* Ht^c jacet.' The grave words of Addison pale beside 
the grave words of Raleigh, and the difference in 
style is the difference between the Eighteenth Cen- 
tury and the Seventeenth. Unfortunately, the His- 
tory of the World is not entirely of a piece with the 
above quotation. 



No. 12, page 79. — The Exercise of the Fan. — 
The first suggestion of this essay, like some others by 
Addison, is due to Steele (see the account of the Fan 
which the ' beauteous Delamira ' resigns to the 
« matchless Virgulta ' in the Tatler for August 9, 
1709, No. $2). The following verses by Atterbury, 
which Steele quotes in Tatler ^o. 239, may also have 
been in Addison's mind : — 

' Flavia the least and slightest toy 

* Can with resistless art employ. 

' This fan in meaner hands would prove 
' An engine of small force in love ; 
' But she with such an air and mien, 

* Not to be told, or safely seen, 

* Directs 



ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 261 

* Directs its wanton motions so, 

* That it wounds more than Caipid's bow ; 

* Gives coolness to the matchless dame, 
' To ev'ry other breast a flame.' 

A more modern illustration of the use of this danger- 
ous weapon is to be found in the Spanish experiences 
of Contarini Fleming (part v., ch. 6) : — ' But the fan 

* is the most wonderful part of the whole scene. A 
' Spanish lady, with her fan, might shame the tactics 

* of a troop of horse. Now she unfurls it with the 

* slow pomp and conscious elegance of the bird of 

* Juno ; now she flutters it with all the languor of a 

* listless beauty, now with all the liveliness of a viva- 

* cious one. Now, in the midst of a very tornado, 

* she closes It with a whirr, which makes you start. 

* . . . . Magical instrument ! In this land it speaks 
' a particular language, and gallantry requires no 

* other mode to express its most subtle conceits or 
' its most unreasonable demands than this delicate 

* machine.' 'Machine' and 'tactics' read a little 
suspiciously ; and it may be that Lord Beaconsfield 
in turn remembered his Spectator. 



No. 13, page 85. — /?^?7/ Fi'mW^.— Steele's first 
outline of Sir Roger is here printed as it appears in the 
folio issue of the Spectator (No. 2, March 2, 1711): — 

' The first of our Society is a Gentleman of Wor- 
' cestershire, of ancient Descent, a Baronet, his Name 

* Sir Roger de Coverly. His great Grandfather 

* was Inventor of that famous Country-Dance which 

* is call'd after him. All who know that Shire, are 

* very 



262 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 

* very well acquainted with the Parts and Merits of 

* Sir Roger. He is a Gentleman that is very singu- 

* lar in his Behaviour, but his Singularities proceed 
' from his good Sense, and are Contradictions to 

* the Manners of the World, only as he thinks the 

* World is in the wrong. However, this Humour 
' creates him no Enemies, for he does nothing with 

* Sowerness or Obstinacy ; and his being unconfined 

* to Modes and Forms, makes him but the readier 

* and more capable to please and oblige all who know 

* him. When he is in Town he lives in Soho-Square: 
' It is said, he keeps himself a Batchelour by reason 

* he was crossed in Love, by a perverse beautiful 
' Widow of the next County to him. Before this 

* Disappointment, Sir Roger was what you call a fine 

* Gentleman, had often supped with my Lord Rochester 
' and Sir George Etherege, fought a Duel upon his 
' first coming to Town, and kick'd Bully Daiuson 
' in a publick Coffee-house for calling him Youngster. 
' But being ill-used by the above-mentioned Widow, 

* he was very serious for a Year and a half; and tho' 

* his Temper being naturally jovial, he at last got 

* over it, he grew careless of himself, and never 

* dressed afterwards ; he continues to wear a Coat 

* and Doublet of the same Cut that were in Fashion 
*at the Time of his Repulse, which, in his merry 
' Humours, he tells us, has been in and out twelve 

* Times since he first wore it He is now 

* in his Fiftysixth Year, cheerful, gay, and hearty ; 

* keeps a good House both in Town and Country ; 
' a great Lover of Mankind ; but there is such a 

* mirthful Cast in his Behaviour, that he is rather 

* beloved 



ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 263 

* beloved than esteemed : His Tenants grow rich, 

* his Servants look satisfied, all the young Women 

* profess Love to him, and the young Men are glad of 

* his Company : When he comes into a House he 

* calls the Servants by their Names, and talks all the 

* Way up Stairs to a Visit. I must not omit that Sir 

* Roger is a Justice of the Quorum ; that he fills the 

* Chair at a Quarter-Session with great Abilities, and 

* three Months ago, gain'd universal Applause by 

* explaining a Passage in the Game-Act.' The charac- 
ter thus generally sketched, was subsequently elabo- 
rated, though not without certain discrepancies, into 
one of the most popular personages of fiction. The 
lion's share of the work was Addison's, Steele's contri- 
butions being only seven in number. Budgell and 
Tickell also assisted. (See No. I'j, Sir Roger de 
Coverley Hare-Hunting, and note to No. 21, Death of 
Sir Roger de Coverley.) 

Sir John Packington, a Tory Knight of Worcester, 
has been named as the original of Sir Roger ; while 
the death of the reputed prototype of Will. Wimble 
is thus recorded in the Gentleman's Magazine for 
1741, p. 387: — 'July 2. At Dublin, Mr. Tho. More- 
' croft, a Baronet's younger Son, the Person men- 

* tioned by the Spectator in the Character of Will. 

* Wimble.' But, for the reasons given in a previous 
note, no real importance can be attached to either of 
these indications. It is much more likely, as sug- 
gested by Mr. W. Henry Wills (Sir Roger de Coverley, 
1850, p. 193), that the character of Wimble grew 
out of a hint of Steele's. — (See account of ' Mr. 

* Thomas Gules of Gule Hall,' Tatler, No. 256.) 

No. 



264 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 

No. 14, page 91. — Sir Roger de Ccruerley's 
Ancestors. — In Fisher's Ground Plan of Whitehall, 
1680, the Tilt- Yard (p. 92) is shewn facing the Ban- 
queting House, and extending to the right. Jenny 
Man's * Tilt- Yard Coffee House,' to which Sir Roger 
refers, is said to have stood on the site at present 
occupied by the Paymaster General's Office, and still 
existed in 1819. Now (1882), the Paymaster Gene- 
ral's itself is to be pulled down, and in a brief space 
of time fresh structures will again arise upon the spot 
where the Knight's ancestor manipulated his adversary 
with such ' laudable Courtesy and pardonable Inso- 
* lence.' As Bramston sings : — 

* What's not destroy 'd by Time's devouring hand ? 

' Where's Troy, and where's the may-pole in the Strand ? ' 

A ' White-pot ' (p. 94), according to Halliwell, is a dish 
made of cream, sugar, rice, cinnamon, &c., formerly 
much eaten in Devonshire. Gay, who came from that 
county, thus refers to it in the Shepherd's Weel, 17 14 : — 

* Pudding our Parson eats, the Squire loves Hare, 
' But White-pot thick is my B^ixoma's Fare.' 

— Monday; or, the Squabble. 



No. 15, page 98. — Sir Roger de Coverley Hare- 
Hunting.— Ks to Sir Roger's solicitude with respect 
to the voices of his dogs, compare Somervile's Chace, 
lySS, Bk. i. p. 18:— 

' But above all take heed, nor mix thy Hounds 
' Of diflf'rent Kinds ; discordant sounds shall grate 
*Thy Ears oflFended, and a lagging Line 
* Of babbling Curs disgrace thy broken Pack.' 

The 



ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 265 

The concluding portion of this paper, on the advau' 
tages of hunting, has been omitted. 



No. 16, page los.~The Citizen's JournaL— 
The ' falhng of a pewter dish ' (p, 109) suggests an 
eighteenth-cenlury detail hardly realizable in these 
days, namely, the scarcity of common earthenware. 
Plates, basins, spoons, flagons, — everything was pew- 
ter. Some quaint illustrations of this are to be found 
in a very interesting article on ' Mrs. Harris's House- 
' hold Book' which appeared in the Saturday Review 
for January 2 1 St, 1882. ' Brooke [not "Brook's"] 
* and Hellier' (p. iii) were Wine - Merchants in 
'Basing lane near Bread -Street,' who frequently 
advertised in the Spectator (see Nos. 150 et seq., ori- 
ginal issue), a fact which probably accounts for their 
presence in the text, here and elsewhere, as neither 
Steele nor Addison seem to have been averse to 'back- 
' ing of their friends.' 

Every club or coffee-house (we must assume) had 
its private oracle, who, at Wills' or the Grecian, 

' Like Cato, gave his little Senate laws, 
* And sat attentive to his own applause ; * 

or like Mr. Nisby, in the humbler houses of call, 

' Emptied his pint, and sputter'd his decrees,' 

through a cloud of Virginia. 

' Laced Coffee ' — it is perhaps needless to add — is 
coffee dashed with spirits. 

No. 



266 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 

No, 17, page 11$,— The Fine Ladys Journal. 
— ' Bohea ' (p. 115), in Clarinda's time, was 205. a lb. 
(see the ' Private Account Book of Isabella, Duchess of 
' Grafton,' in the Hanmer Correspondence, 1838, p. 239). 
' Aurengzebe' (p. 116) was an heroic play produced 
by Dryden in 1675 ; 'Indamora' (p. 117) was the 
name of the heroine. For Nicolini, see Note to No. 
10, Stage Lions. The 'dumb man' (p. 119) was 
Duncan Campbell, a fashionable fortune-teller, whose 
head-quarters in 171 2 (see Spectator, No. 474) were at 
the ' Golden Lion ' in Drury Lane. De Foe com- 
piled a popular life of him, which Curll published 
in 1720. He was then * living in Exeter Court, 
' over against the Savoy, in the Strand,' and still 
prospering with the credulous. As to ' Lady Betty 

* Modely's skuttle' (p. 117), and 'Mobs' (p. 119), 
Chalmers has two highly edifying notes. He ex- 
plains the former to be ' a pace of affected precipita- 
' tion,' and the latter ' a huddled oeconomy of dress 

* so called.' ' Mobs ' were in vogue long after the 
date of this paper. They are referred to as late as 
1773 or 4 in those dancing couplets which Goldsmith 
wrote to pretty Mrs. Bunbury at Barton, and which 
were first given to the world in the Hanmer Corre- 
spondence, p. 382 : — 

' Both are plac'd at the bar, with all proper decorum, 
' With bunches of fennel!, and nosegays before 'em ; 
' Both co\'er their faces with 7nol>s, and all that, 
' But the judge bids them, angrily, take oflf their hat. 

The authorship of the celebrated epitaph ' On the 

* Countess Dowager of Pembroke * (p. 120) still re- 

mains 



ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 267 

mains ' uncertain.' In the original issue of this 
essay Addison assigned it to Ben Jonson, in whose 
works it was included by his first editor Whalley, 
whom Gifford follows (Jonson's JVorhs, 1816, viii., 
p. 337). In the previous year (181 5) Sir Egerton 
Brydges, when editing his 0;'?o-mfl/ Poems, never before 
published, by William Browne (the author o( Britannia's 
Pastorals), had thought himself justified in claiming 
it for that author, because he had found it, with 
a second stanza, in a collection of poems purporting 
to be by Browne, which forms part of the Lansdowne 
MSS. (No. 777, Art. i.) Of this version the follow- 
"ing is a textual copy from the MS. (fol. 43) ; — 

* Vnderneath this sable Herse 
' Lyes the subiect of all verse 

* Sydneyes sister Pembrokes mother 
' Death ere thou hast slaine ancither 
' ffaire & Learn'd & good as she 

' Tyme shall throw a dart at thee. 

' Maible pyles let no man raise 

* To her name for after dayes 

' Some kind woman borne as she 
' Reading this like Niobe 

* Shall tunie Marble & become 

* B th her Mourner & ker Tonibe.' 



Browne was on intimate terms with William, Earl of 
Pembroke, here referred to. But, oddly enough, the 
foregoing verses (and this assumes the existence of 
another MS. copy) are to be found among what are 
described as Pembroke's own poems, printed with 
Rudyard's in 1660 by the younger Donne, and re- 
printed 



268 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 

printed by Brydges in 1817. In this collection, 
however, they do not, according to Brydges, bear 
Pembroke's initial ; and as the volume also contains 
several pieces which have been traced to well-known 
waiters (see Hannah's Poems by Sir Henry Wotton, 
Sir Walter Raleigh, and others, 1845, p. Ixi.), 
Pembroke's claim to any hand in them, improbable 
en other grounds, may fairly be dismissed. The 
choice therefore lies between Jonson, to whom tra- 
dition assigns them, and Browne, in whose MS. 
poems they appear. From the inferior and even 
contradictory character of the second stanza, editors 
have naturally hesitated to give Jonson the credit of 
it. But this is to insist a little too much upon 
great authors being always equal to themselves. If, 
as we cannot but believe, he wrote the first verse, 
it is not impossible that he also wrote the second, 
only discarding it perhaps when it was too late to 
suppress it entirely. At all events, the ' sable Herse ' 
of line i. seems to anticipate the 'Marble pyles' of 
line vii. ; and the fact that, in addition to the two 
cases mentioned above, ' both parts are found in 

* many ancient copies — e.g., in Bancroft's Collection, 

* MS. Tann. 465, fol. 62; and in MS. Ashm. 781, 
'p. 152 ' (Hannah, ut supra, p. Ixii.), is in favour 
of their being the work of one and the same writer, 
whether it be Browne or Jonson. 



No. i8, page 121. — Sir Roger de Coverley at 
the Play. — The Distrest Mother (p. 121), the new 
play referred to, was a dull and decorous version by 

Ambrose 



ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 269 

Ambrose Philips of Racine's Andromaqtie. Fielding 
burlesqued it in the Covent Garden Tragedy, 1732. 
The part of Andromache was taken by Pope's ' Nar- 
' cissa,' Mrs. Oldfield ; and Addison and Budgell fur- 
nished a highly popular Epilogue. Steele, who wrote 
the Prologue, had already praised the p.ece in an 
earlier Spectator (No. 290). The Committee; or, the 
Faithful Irishman, 1665 (p. 121), was a play by Sir 
Robert Howard, Dryden's brother-in-law. Captain 
Sentry (p. 122) was Sir Roger's nephew and heir. 
(See No. 21, Death of Sir Roger de Coverley.) 

The ' Mohocks ' or Mohawks (p. 122) of whom 
mention was made in the Fine Lady's Journal, were 
a club or ' nocturnal fraternity,' who perpetrated 
all kinds of brutal excesses. There is a letter giving 
a particular account of them in No. 324 of the Spec- 
tator. Swift also writes : — ' Did I tell )'0U of a race 

* of rakes, called the Mohocks, that play the devil 

* about this town every night, slit people's noses and 
'beat them, etc.?' Again, 'Our Mohocks go on 

* still, and cut people's faces every night. 'Faith, 

* they shan't cut mine : I like it better as it is. The 

* dogs will cost me at least a crown a week in chairs. 
' I believe the souls of your houghers of cattle have got 
' into them, and now they don't distinguish between 
' a cow and a Christian.' {Journal to Stella, Forster's 
corrected text, March 8 and 26, 1712.) What would 
Swift have said to the ' houghers of cattle ' to-day ? 



No. ig, page 128. — A Day's Ramble in London. 
-The old ' Stocks Market ' (p. 130), a view of 

which 



270 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 

which by Joseph Nichols, shewing the statue of 
Charles 11. trampling upon Oliver Cromwell, was 
engraved in 1738, stood on the site of the present 
Mansion House; and 'Strand Bridge' (p. 130) was 
at the foot of Strand Lane, between King's College 
and Surrey Street. There was a ' Dark-house ' (p. 
130) in Billingsgate; but it can scarcely be the one 
here referred to. 'James Street' (p. 132) is James 
Street, Covent Garden. 

The ' Silkworm ' of this Voyage ou il votis plaira 
still survived at the close of the century in Cowper's 

' Miss, the mercer's plague, from shop to shop 

' Wandering, and littering with unfolded silks 
* The polished counter, and approving none, 
' Or promising with smiles to call again.' 

— nor is the race even now extinct. Steele's frank 
admiration for female beauty is one of the most 
engaging features in his papers. A subsequent Spec- 
tator (No. 510) begins thus :— ' I was the other Day 
' driving in an Hack thro' Gerard-Street, when my 

* Eye was immediately catch'd with the prettiest 

* Object imaginable, the Face of a very fair Girl, 

* between Thirteen and Fourteen, fixed at the Chin 
' to a painted Sash, and made part of the Lanskip. 
' It seem'd admirably done, and upon throwing my- 

* self eagerly out of the Coach to look at it, it laugh'd, 

* and flung from the Window. This amiable Figure 

* dwelt upon me,' — and so forth. See also the episode 
of the beautiful Amazon of Enfield Chase in Tatler, 

No. 



ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 271 

No. 248. One wonders a little if 'Dearest Prue' 
ever studied these particular essays. 



No. 20, page 138. — Dich Estcourt: In Meino- 
riam. — Estcourt was buried in the South Aisle of St. 
Paul's, Covent Garden, on the day this paper was 
issued (August 27th, 1712).* Another contemporary 
and eye-witness of his performances closely confirms 
Steele's words respecting his imitative powers. ' This 

* Man was so amazing and extraordinary a Mimick, 

* that no Man or Woman, from the Coquette to the 

* Privy-Councillor, ever mov'd or spoke before him, 
' but he could carry their Voice, Look, Mien, and 

* Motion, instantly into another Company : I have 

* heard him make long Harangues, and form various 

* Arguments, even in the Manner of Thinking, of an 

* eminent Pleader at the Bar, with every the least 
' Article and Singularity of his Utterance so perfectly 

* imitated, that he was the very alter ipse, scarce to be 
' distinguish'd from his Original.' — {An Apology for 
the Life of Mr. Colley Cibhr, Comedian, 1740, p. 
6^.) Yet Cibber goes on to say that these qualities 
deserted him upon the stage ; and that he was on the 
whole ' a languid, unaffecting Actor.' 

The Northern Lasse (p. 142), first acted in 1632, 
was by Richard Brome ; the Tender Husband, 1703 
(p. 142), was Steele's own. There are other references 
to Estcourt in Nos. 264, 358 and 370 of the Spectator. 

* The date of Estcourt's burial has been obligingly 
supplied by Colonel Jos. L. Chester. 



272 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 

He acted as Providore of the famous Beef-Steak Club, 
and wore a golden gridiron as his badge of office. 



No. 21, page 145. — Death of Sir Roger de 
Coverley. — * The reason which induced Cervantes to 
' bring his hero to the grave, para mi sola nacio Don 

* Quixote, y yo para el, made Addison declare, with 

* undue vehemence of expression, that he would kill 

* Sir Roger, being of opinion that they were born for 

* one another, and that any other hand would do him 
' wrong.' — Qohnson's Lives, by Cunningham, ii., 
134). Johnson's statement is based upon a passage 
in Budgell's Bee, 1733, No. i. There is also a tradi- 
tion that Addison was displeased by certain liberties 
taken with his favourite character in No. 410 of the 
Spectator, suTpTposed. to be by Tickell. If this be so, 
his resentment was somewhat tardily exhibited, for 
there is an interval of four months between the paper 
referred to, and the present essay. The true ground 
for Sir Roger's death is probably to be found in the 
fact that Steele was preparing to wind up vol. vii. — 
(See Introduction, p. xiv.) 



No. 22, page 151. — The Tory Foxhunter. — The 
reader is referred to Mr. Caldecott's humorous frontis- 
piece. The huge overfed horseman, with his jolting 
seat and noisy laugh, is surely a creation worthy of 
Addison's text. Will not Mr. Caldecott some day 
gi^•e us a series of studies from the Essayists? He 

seems 



ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 275 

seems to seize tlie very spirit of the age : other men 
draw its dress. 

' Dyer's Letter' (p. 154) was a news-letter, having 
a blank page for correspondence. In No. 127 of the 
Spectator Sir Roger is represented as reading it aloud 
each morning to his guests. There was another 
issued by Ichabod Dawks (Tatler, No. 178). That 
elegant Latinist, Mr. Smith, of Phcedra and Hippolitus 
fame (see Note to No. 28), put them both into v-erse : — 

' Scribe securus, quid agit Senatus, 

* Quid caput stertit grave Lambeihanum, 

* Quid Comes Guildford, quid habent novorum 

* Dazvksqu.^ Dj'erquQ.' 



No. 23, page 160. — A Modern Conversation.— 
Lord Chesterfield's sketch of his academic friend may 
be cornpared with Thomas Warton's Journal of a 
Senior Fellow (also of Cambridge) in No. 33 of The 
Idler, — a paper that would have found a place in this 
collection but for its evident relationship to Addison's 
earlier Journals (Nos. 16, and 17), Warton had 
already satirised the easy, inglorious life of the aver- 
age College dou of the period in his ' Progress of Dis- 
* content,' the first version of which appeared in the 
5^M£?m^ of June 30, 1750: — 

' Return, ye days, when endless pleasure 
' I found in reading, or in leisure ! 
' When calm around the common room 
' I puff'd my daily pipe's perfume I 
' Rode for a stomach, and inspected, 
* At annual bottlings, corks selected : 

'And 
20 



274 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 

* And din'd untax'd, untroublsd, undir 
' The portrait of our pious Founder ! ' 

— {Poetical Works, ii., 1802, p. 197 ) 

* The late Dr. [George] Cheyne* (p. 168) died in 
April, 1743. His English Malady (i.e., Hypochon- 
dria), published in 1733, is more than once referred to 
in Boswell's Johnson, and he was the friend of Richard- 
son. His last book was dedicated to Chesterfield. 
In Gillray's well-known Temperance enjoying a Frugal 
Meal, 1792, which represents King George HI. and 
Queen Charlotte at breakfast on eggs and salad, ' Dr. 
* Cheyne on the Benefits of a Spare Diet' is a pro- 
minent object in the foreground. 



No. 24, page 169. — A Modern Conversation 
(continued). — By * Chaos wine ' (p. 172) Colonel Cul- 
verin is explained to have meant * Cahors.' The 
' Bottle Act' (p. 174) referred to was, in all proba- 
bility, the Act of 1753 for preventing wines from 
being brought into the port of London without pay- 
ing the London duty. Next to London, Bristol was 
the largest importer of wines, and a centre of the 
glass bottle trade, which may account for its connec- 
tion with the toast ; but the allusion is obscure. 
The 'Jew Bill' (p. 174) was the unpopular measure 
for naturalising the Jews which was passed and re- 
pealed in 1753. Lord Chesterfield approved it, and 
regarded its repeal as a concession to the mob. — 
(Letters, Nov. 26, 1753.) There are many satirical 
prints relating to this subject in the British Museum ; 

and 



ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 275 

and in Hogarth's Election Entertainment, 175$, a 
hook-nosed effigy, with a placard round its neck 
inscribed * No Jews,' is conspicuous among the 
objects seen through the open window. 



No. 25, page 178. — The Squire in Orders.-^ 
To be 'japanned' (p. 179) is ' Eighteenth -Century ' 
for being ordained. When Sir William Trelawney 
found he could only assist his protege and medical 
adviser, John Wolcot (afterwards ' Peter Pindar '), by 
giving him a living, he sent him from Jamaica to 
England to ' get himself japanned.' Wolcot's brief 
clerical career was of a piece with this beginning. 
His congregation, chiefly negroes, frequently failed to 
attend, and on these occasions, he used to while away 
the service-time on the shore by shooting ring-tailed 
pigeons with his clerk. 

As a pendant to ' Mr. Village's ' picture, we subjoin 
Fielding's portrait (Champion, February 26, 1740) of 
another kind of ' country parson ' — a portrait which 
its author affirms to have been taken from the life : — 

' Sometime since I went with my wife to pay a 

* visit to a country clergyman, who hath a living of 

* somewhat above ;^ioo a year. In his youth he had 

* sacrificed a Fellowship in one of the Universities, to 

* marry a very agreeable woman, who with a small 
' fortune had had a very good education. Soon after 

* his marriage he was presented to the living, of which 
' he is now incumbent. Since his coming hither, he 

* hath improv'd the Parsonage-house and garden, both 

* which are now in the neatest order. At our arri- 

* valj 



276 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 

' val, we were met at the gate by the clergyman and 

* two of his sons. After telling us with the most 

* cheerful voice and countenance that he was extremely 
' glad to see us, he took my wife down in his arms, 

* and committing our two horses to the care of his 

* sons, he conducted us into a little neat parlour, where 

* a table was spread for our entertainment. Here the 

* good woman and her eldest daughter receiv'd us 

* with many hearty expressions of kindness, and very 

* earnest desires that we would take something to 
' refresh ourselves before dinner. Upon this a bottle 

* of Mead was produc'd, which was of their own 
' making, and very good in its kind. Dinner soon 

* foUow'd, being a gammon of bacon and some 

* chickens, with a most excellent apple-pye. My 
' friend excused himself from not treating me with a 
' roasted pig (a dish I am particularly fond of) by 

* telling us that as times were hard, he had relin- 
' quish'd those Tithes to his parishioners. Our 
' liquors were the aforesaid mead, elder wine, with 
' strong beer, ale, &c., all perfectly good, and which 
' our friends exprest great pleasure at our drinking 
' and likingT After a meal spent with the utmost 

* cheerfulness, we walked into a little, neat garden, 
' where we passed the afternoon with the gayest and 

* most innocent mirth, the good man and good 
' woman, their sons and daughters, all vying with 
' one another, who should shew us the greatest signs 

* of respect, and of their forwardness to help us to 

* anything they had. 

' The economy of these good people may be instruc- 

* tive to some, as well as entertaining to all my readers. 

'The 



ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 



277 



' The clergyman, wHo is an excellent scholar, is 

* himself the school-master to his boys (which are 

* three in number). As soon as the hours, appointed 
' for their studies, are over, the master and all the 
' scholars employ themselves at work either in the 

* garden, or some other labour about the house, while 

* the little woman is no less industrious in her sphere 

* with her two daughters within. Thus the furniture 

* of their house, their garden, their table, and their 

* cellar, are almost all the work of their own hands ; 
' and the sons grow at once robust and learned, while 

* the daughters become housewives, at the same time 

* that they learn of their mother several of the gen- 

* teeler accomplishments. 

' Love and friendship were never in greater purity 

* than between this good couple, and as they both 

* have the utmost tenderness for their children, so 

* they meet with the greatest returns of gratitude and 

* respect from them. Nay the whole parish is by 
' their example the family of love, of which they 

* daily receive instances from their spiritual guide, 

* and which hath such an effect on them, that I 
' believe — communibus annis — he receives voluntarily 

* from his parishioners more than his due, though not 

* half so much as he deserves.' — (Edn. 1741, i. 310.) 

It will be noted that, so far from being 

' passing rich with forty pounds a year,' 

one of these clergymen has ;^300, and the other has 
;^ioo per annum. 

No. 



278 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 

No. 26, page 186. — Country Congregations. — 
This paper of Cowper's is a little in the vein of Wash- 
ington living's charming studies in the Sketch-Booh. 
The < Negligee,' the ' Slammerkin,' and the ' Trol- 
' lope,' or 'Trollopee' (p. 192), as may be guessed 
from the names, were loose gowns worn by ladies 
towards the middle of the Century. ' Mrs. Round- 

* about,' in Goldsmith's Bee (No. ii., Oct. 13, 1759), 
wears a 'lutestring trollopee' with a two yard train. 
The ' Joan ' (p. 192) was a close cap— the reverse of a 
mob. 

The * two figures at St. Dunstari's ' (i.e., St. Dun- 
stan's. Fleet Street) referred to at p. 188, are described 
as ' 2 Figures of Savages or wild Men, well carved in 
' Wood, and painted natviral Colour, appearing as big 
' as the Life, standing erect, each with a knotty Club 
' in his Hand, whereby they alternately strike the 
' Quarters, not only their Arms, but even their Heads 
' moving at every Blow.' The writer of the above, 
parish-clerk in 1732, goes on to say 'they are more 

* admired by many of the Populace on Sundays, than 
' the most elegant Preacher from the Pulpit within.' 
Cowper refers to them again in his Table-Talk, 1782. 



No. 27, page 194. — Dick Minim the Critic. — 
Phcedra and Hippolitiis (p. 198), an adaptation by Ed- 
mund Smith of Racine's Phedre, was produced at the 
Haymarket, 21st April 1707, and acted four times. 
Addison wrote the Prologue; Prior the Epilogue. 
The former (Spectator, No. 18) calls it ' an admirable 
' tragedy ; ' but it pleased the critics better than the 

pit. 



ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 279 

pit. It was revived at Covent Garden in November 
1754, which is perhaps an additional reason why 
Johnson remembered it here. Barharossa (p. 199), 
produced at Drury Lane in the same year, was a 
tragedy by the Rev. Dr. Browne. In this play the 
bells for the midnight and the second watch are used 
as signals by the assassins of the chief character. 
Cleone (p. 199), also a tragedy, was by Robert Dodsley 
the bookseller, who published London and the Vanity 
of Human Wishes. It first came out at Covent Garden 
on December 2nd, 1758. Johnson regarded it as su- 
perior to Otway, and thus speaks of it in a letter to 
Berinet Langton, dated January 9th, 1759 : — ' Cleone 
' was well acted by all the characters, but Bellamy [i.e-., 
' the blue-eyed and beautiful George Ann Bellamy, 

* who, as the heroine, made the fortune of the piece] 
' left nothing to be desired. I went the first night, 
' and supported it as well as I might ; for Doddy, you 

* know, is my patron, and I would not desert him. 
' The play was very well received. Doddy, after the 
' danger was over, went every night to the stage-side, 

* and cried at the distress of poor Cleone.' — {BoswcWs 
Life, by Croker, Chap. XIII.) 

Dick Minim would have rejoiced over the opening 
verse of Enoch Arden — 

' Long lines oi cWS breaking have left a chasm.' 



No. 28, page 202. — Dick Minim the Critic 
(continued). — In a forcible passage respecting transla- 
tions, which is to be found in the ' Preface ' to the 

Dictionary, 



28o ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 

Dictionary, Johnson had already declared his aversion 
to tribunals of taste (p. 203) : — ' If an academy should 
' be established for the cultivation of our style, which 
' I, who can never wish to see dependance multiplied, 
'hope the spirit of English liberty will hinder or 
' destroy, let them, instead of compiling grammars 

* and dictionaries, endeavour, with all their influence, 

* to stop the licence of translators, whose idleness and 

* ignorance, if it be suffered to proceed, will reduce us to 

* babble a dialect of France,^ The writer who, as Gar- 
rick expressed it with more patriotism than elegance, 

' arm'd like a hero of yore, 

' Had beat forty French, and would beat forty more,* 

might perhaps be pardoned for a little self-satisfaction, 
M. Littre not having yet arisen as a formidable rival. 
But those who care to ascertain what the foremost 
English critic of our day has to say upon the same 
theme should turn to Mr. Matthew Arnold's paper on 
The Literary Influence of Academies. — (Cornhill Maga- 
zine, X., pp. 154-172.) 

In Oldisworth's panegyric on Edmund Smith (see 
Note to No. 27) quoted by Johnson in his life of that 
author, there is a passage of which he may have 
been thinking when he wrote Minim's advice to 
aspiring youth (p. 206) : — ' When he was writing 
' upon a subject, he would seriously consider what 

* Demosthenes, Homer, Virgil, or Horace, if alive, 

* would say upon that occasion, which whetted him 

* to exceed himself as well as others.'— (LtVes of the 
Poets, Cunningham's edn., ii., 46.) 

No. 



ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 281 

No. 29, page 209. — Art-Connoisseurs. — This 
Essay, and those on the Grand Style of Painting, 
and the True Idea of Beauty {Idlers, Nos. 79 and 
82), were said by Northcote to be ' a kind of syllabus ' 
of Sir Joshua's famous Discourses. The references in 
this paper to ' the flowing line, which constitutes 

* grace and beauty,' and the ' pyramidal principle ' 
(p. 211), would seem to \)Q sidelong strokes at Ho- 
garth's Analysis, 1753, which had its origin in the 
precept attributed to Michael Angelo that a figure 
should be always ' Pyramidall, Serpentlike, and multi- 

* plied by one two and three.' — (Preface, p. v.) 



No, 30, page 214. — The Man in Black.— The 
paper which immediately follows this one in the 
Citizen of the World, while professing to give the 
personal history of the * Man in Black,' contains 
several particulars which belong to Goldsmith's own 
biography. ' Who can possibly doubt,' says Mr. For- 
ster, ' the original from whom the man in black's expe- 
' riences were taken?' {Citizen of the World, xxvii.) 
' The first opportunity he [my father] had of finding 
' his expectations disappointed, was in the middling 
' figure I made at the university : he had flattered 

* himself that he should soon see me rising into the 

* foremost rank in literary reputation, but was morti- 
' fied to find me utterly unnoticed and unknown. 

* His disappointment might have been partly ascribed 
' to his having over-rated my talents, and partly to 

* my dislike of mathematical reasonings at a time when 
' my imagination and memory, yet unsatisfied, were 

' more 



282 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 

' more eager after new objects than desirous of reason- 

* ing upon those I knew. This, however, did not 
' please my tutor, who observed indeed that I was a 

* little dull ; but at the same time allowed that I 

* seemed to be very good-natured, and had no harm 
' in me.' — {Life, Bk. I., Chap, ii.) 



No. 31, page 220. — Beau Tj^Z^jt.— This paper 
and the next, although included in the Citizen of 
the World, are here printed as revised in the Essays 
hy Mr. Goldsmith, published by W. Griffin in 176$. 
' It is supposed that this exquisite sketch had a living 
' original in one of Goldsmith's casual acquaintance ; 
* a person named Thornton, once in the army.'— 
(Forster's Life, Bk. III., Chap, iv.) 



No. 32, page 226. — Beau Tibbs (continued.) — As 
indicative of Goldsmith's fondness for the Christian 
names of little Miss Tibbs, Cunningham points out 
that he transfers them to a character of later date : — 
' Lady Blarney was particularly attached to Olivia ; 
' Miss Carolina Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs (I love 
* to give the whole name) took a greater fancy to her 
' sister.'— (F/car of Wakefield, Chap, xi.) The italics 



No. 33, page 233. — Beau Tibbs at Vauxhall. — 
Vauxhall, much fallen and degraded, saw its ' posi- 
' lively last' day in 1859. The fifteen hundred 

lamps. 



ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 285 

lamps, the waterworks, and the French horns so 
dear to Mrs. Tibbs's Countess, had then long been 
things of the past ; and those who wish to realise 
the splendours of the Rotunda, the ' magnificent 
' orchestra of Gothic construction,' the mechanical 
landscape, the Grove, and the ' Lover's Walk,' must 
reconstruct them from the pages of Walpole and Miss 
Burney, or the designs of Wale and Canaletti. It is 
possible that those decorations of the pavilions which 
the much-suffering pawnbroker's widow admired were 
the very paintings which Hogarth and Hayman had 
executed for Jonathan Tyers as far back as 1732. 
They existed for many years subsequent to the date 
when Goldsmith wrote, being sold with other pro- 
perty in 1841. At that time they were said to be 
greatly ' obscured by dirt.' When it is added that 
they had long been exposed to the air, varnished 
every year, and freely assaulted by sandwich knives, 
it will be seen that their condition was indeed deplor- 
able. But the little Beau would not have approved 
them at any stage ; he would have shrugged his 
shoulders, rapped his box, and talked of the grand 
contorno of Alesso Baldovinetto. 

Neither this admirable study in genre nor the Man 
"in Black are included in Goldsmith's selected Essays 
of 1765. It is difficult to account for their absence 
except by that strange paternal blindness which also 
led Prior to omit from his collected poems the ' Secre- 
' tary ' and the lines to a ' Child of Quality,' two of 
the pieces by which he is perhaps best known to readers 
of to-day. 

No. 



284 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 

No. 34, page 241. — A Country Dowager. — This 
paper is printed from the edition of Mackenzie's works 
published at Edinburgh in 1808, and revised by the 
author. 



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